Bud Light’s problem is that in the past two months millions of customers took the opportunity to find out that beer does not have to taste like watered down piss. A full herd of Clydesdales couldn’t drag them back.
The Bud Light brouhaha shows that the general public is beginning to understand they have more power in this country as capitalist consumers than as voters, and that the people who’re really running America have never had their name on a ballot.
Off topic, but I think we need to support this Committee ....
The chairman of a Congressional Subcommittee on the Pandemic said today that the Constitution should NOT have been “suspended” 40 months ago.
This is an encouraging sign that Congress - at least the Republicans - are belatedly recognizing the scale of this massive and alarming error.
The chairman’s opening statement is very good. I hope more people on “our side” can contact him and other members of this Committee and give them an atto-boy and encourage them to keep this issue front and center. I also know the MSM will ignore this, which is why I was quick to post a story. Share it if you can.
When I was working in Germany about a decade ago, I was told that joke by three different and unrelated persons, in every case we were drinking at a kneipe. That joke is funny, but it is very funny when the person telling it renders it German accented English while we are drinking very good german beer.
I don't drink beer, but I buy it for guests. I have dumped the bud light out of the refrigerator and won't buy more. You are right a full herd won't do it.
It was a little disappointing to see that Modelo had replaced it as the most popular beer, all from the same parent company, but the message was made loud and clear.
Things are not always as they seem. It's good to keep an open mind and humility. While Bud Light is not, and certainly never has been, an interest of mine, I have some friends that are very good craft brewers. One's Anchor Steam came in 3rd in a national contest out 7000 entries. He is amazed at the science and the quality control required to make Bud Light. They make huge amounts (10,000 gallons?), in very different conditions, all over the world, and it taste exactly the same. Given how light it is, any impurities at all will show up and impact taste. My friend says it is a lot easier to hide mistakes in heavier beers. My point is even beer pros admit they can't do what Bud Light does. We should admire man's ingenuity and uniqueness, his art as it were, where ever we find it. That doesn't mean we have to drink it. Let's just not call it names. It's wrong for the beer but worse for the way we think. Once you start name calling, you stop thinking.
Besides, people who have contempt for their consumers in advertising may show the same contempt in "quality control." Just because "your friend" says that they have it don't mean a thing. You could just be a shill.
Can you recognize when people are calling you names? I certainly wasn't.
I have seen too many comments during covid that referred to "friends" or "relatives" with special knowledge who denied whatever some of the more wary of us were saying. Part of a psy-op, in my view. That is not a reflection on you, Vic. But without documentation, I don't take anything seriously.
Sorry to be pedantic but the collective noun in this instance is "a full team of Clydesdales..." Had you used wild horses then herd would have been correct. Your description of the situation, however is perfect.
I was tossing up whether to use my real name but, 'Self-importance is the enemy.' If AI (or whomever) doxxes- so be it.
Companies like Bayer/IG Farben etc. might sweat a little trying to explain to normies why Bayer never made a vaccine for example until covid and both companies have direct links to Auschwitz.
Clarifying: the «prove you're not a camel» line comes from an old Soviet joke that exists in myriad variations:
A horse (cat, rat, human) is trying to pass the border checkpoint from Country A (Afghanistan, Somalia, Ukraine) to Country B (USSR, Ethiopia, Russia) claiming to be a refugee. The border guards ask:
– What are you so afraid of?
– In Country A, they're castrating camels!
– Why would you worry, you're not a camel.
– Yeah, sure, first they castrate you and then go prove you're not a camel.
Presumption of innocence doesn't always work in authoritarian regimes.
Frankly, I don't know enough about AI to say anything intelligent. I have a larger than normal load of stuff, good and not so good, to deal with and finding the time to educate myself has not been a high priority. That's why Bad Cat is such a worthwhile place to look for thoughtful opinions, remembering of course that opinions are like assholes; everyone has one and a lot of them stink. Anyway, watch/read and learn...Meowdios!
All lies, all the time. Our world is a farm for negative emotions and vibrations.
--
"The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media." -Former CIA Director William Colby (Operation Mockingbird)
--
"I was taught to lie, to betray and not to tell the truth to the public. I ended up publishing articles under my own name written by agents of the CIA and other intelligence services, especially the German secret service.
…
Most journalists from respected and big media organisations are closely connected to the German Marshall Fund, the Atlantik-Brücke or other so-called transatlantic organisations…once you’re connected, you make friends with selected Americans. You think they are your friends and you start cooperating. They work on your ego, make you feel like you’re important. And one day one of them will ask you, "Will you do me this favor?"
…
We’re talking about puppets on a string, journalists who write or say whatever their masters tell them to say or write. If you see how the mainstream media is reporting about the Ukraine conflict and if you know what’s really going on, you get the picture. The masters in the background are pushing for war with Russia and western journalists are putting on their helmets.
…
When I told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Ulfkotte’s newspaper) that I would publish the book, their lawyers sent me a letter threatening with all legal consequences if I would publish any names or secrets — but I don’t mind. You see, I don’t have children to take care of." -Udo Ulfkotte, German Journalist 2017, Now Dead
---
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way. -Franklin D. Roosevelt
"You see, I don't have children to take care of"--I have always thought that this was behind the Roman church move, over a thousand years ago, to celibacy--greater moral strength from not having to be concerned for wife and children. Speaking from a Protestant view.
Speaking as someone who never had kids or ever married, there is a lot to be said about that point of view. I am free to take risks and take stands that those with dependents cannot.
I'm not a Christian, of course, but it always seemed rather peculiar to me that high church officials wore gold-trimmed finery and lived in, you know, palaces.
Just a reminder that, at this point in human history, it's impossible to live in "unprecedented" times.
Power has a way of attracting sociopaths, the way catnip attracts cats.
There was some Renaissance Pope that was praised for his honesty in acknowledging his illegitimate children, rather than calling them his "nieces and nephews" when everyone knew the real score.
Great article. My father at age two, and his family, was abandoned by his father in the days before welfare. He was so poor he slept three to a bed and he only got one present a year, a banana at Christmas. He would soak his hands in urine to basically chemically tan them to work construction to pay for college. He went on to a very successful career but he always kept a very philosophical view of life. Among many important lessons he taught me, perhaps the most important, was "It is easier to get a new job than a new reputation."
I occasionally give speeches and I always end them with "Never forget we are living the greatest lives that have ever been lived in human history and if that's not the first thing we tell ourselves each morning, we're fools."
I understand that life is precious and we have to treasure our lives and freedom to livenit, but i think lives in this case should be replaced by lies...
I’ll be happy to answer, and thanks for the question, but the fact you have to ask shows the total failure of our education system. Half of all children died by age five of bad water, bad food or diseases of poverty. People living into their thirties were old, often crippled, and lived in extreme pain. The average peasant never went more than five miles from where they were born. Very few knew how to read or could afford books. When I was in college (a miracle in its own right that a society is rich enough to support basically parasitic students that long), about 40% of the world was on the edge of poverty, now or at least before Covid, is below 10%. The average life expectancy in China was 39 years and now it’s over 70. Think how different you live your life with 39 years vs 70? I could go on about electric, healthcare, travel, information but you get the point. Perhaps the greatest gift we have is the psychology free ride we’ve gotten. Sure we’ve had money and relationships and other problems, but compared to watching half you siblings die by age five, your parents dying in crippling pain, or during a famine figuring out which kid starved to death, we’ve had a historically free emotional ride. I give speeches and say the only history, or at least the first, lesson we should be taught is the above. We truly are living the greatest lives ever live in history.
I agree with you. But each morning I give thanks to my God for getting me through another night of rest, and offering me another day in which to serve Him. It makes me happy to offer these prayers of gratitude. Also, I used to (repeatedly) give thanks to my parents for the sacrifices which they made for me.
you aren't getting my point. Even if you were to live the same amount of time, you now aren't living in the dirt, eating rotten food when you can get it, with open sores, bone crushing work, cold, thirsty, diarrhetic, sick, parasitic, in the dark, in pain and constantly in a state of fear of death. The next time you take a warm shower, see how that makes you feel and realize how few people in history have enjoyed that. That is better whether you live to be 10 or 100. I am truly sorry you can't see that. If nothing else know that a person you have never met and will never meet hopes that you can find happiness in life's simple joys by realizing they are not natural and certainly not common in history.
What’s to stop the planting of reputation damaging tweets, emails, text messages, etc. by the powers that be? Especially with the advent of AI. A friend has a first gen face app that he uses to mess with other friends and, even though you know they’re fake, they aren’t that bad. Those apps have gotten much better and will only continue to do so. So how can we trust anything electronic? Any purported “real” photo or video?
I think I’m going to buy Kodak and Polaroid stock, since only actual photos from old school cameras are more (tho not completely) trustworthy.
that's going to be an interesting problem to solve but can be easily handled with cryptographic hashes and checksums.
the infrastructure to generate that sort of verification is going to need to emerge. will be vital for photos in particular but pretty much all public discourse is going to need validation modalities.
We've discussed this before, but I'm still skeptical that we can get away from having to trust the party that sets up the cryptography and blockchain apps. Are we sure they won't have a back-door?
Do you, personally, know ANY programmer who failed to include 'back door(s)' into applications he or she developed. (Ostensibly for debugging - if for no other reason.)
Until the advent of AI, every computer application ever developed was based on algorithms devised by people. And coded by other people. And tested and debugged by still more people. And every one of those people is (theoretically - I know some programmers...), a human being. With human failings, and human weaknesses. Subject to human faults. Susceptible to all of the vices. Greed, fear, and pride can be, and frequently have been, leveraged to force programmers to tweak algorithms to favour particular results. Witness the prevalent social media or search engine bias. And ask yourself, how many of those familiar with the world of information technology really "trust" digital currencies?
I think the outcome is predictable. Big tech and government will throttle AI and there tools will become more propaganda. That said, AI isn't one thing. Various AI's will be developed to stand against the regulated tools and the separated opinions and mistrust will continue.
The entire world will continue to be on one side of an issue or another - Nothing Changes.
I have wondered if this is a legitimate use for blockchain apps. I am not too clued up about the technology, but isn't that what NFTs do in a way? Though you will still need some way of verifying the source of the original.
Can anyone with more knowledge on this explain if this could work?
but it may provide access to the knowledge that will.
the best way to undermine faith in the state is to accurate show its costs and effects and to piece the viel of gaslighting it uses to extol its alleged virtues and to lie about what it takes from us.
Agreed, but it DOES provide those who would change minds with simple, fast, effective, easy to deploy, and above all, inexpensive tools to aid in that endeavor.
Not surprisingly, TDS exists even among the elephant class.
I was recently on a road trip with my husband and another couple. We spent quite a few days together exploring some beautiful United States countryside and meeting a lot of nice people.
On the drive home, through the desert, our conversation turned to politics. After the conversation got slightly heated, someone suggested we look out at the pretty landscape where the arid desert oil fields and melting asphalt became preferable to all. Here was another person I know confessing to a myopic view of current affairs because it’s easier and doesn’t matter to our day-to-day. But somehow all the ills are the fault of one man 🤦♀️. At a pitstop shortly thereafter, we all got a chuckle at a guy in pink crocs carrying a 12 pack of bud light. Don’t give up AB! Don’t give up. Lastly, I was told recently I use the word sorry way too much. And now this 🔝 😳. (Sorry not sorry 😣).
Dear el gato...ai is built by a human trsining the ai what is factual and whatbis not..enormous amounts of data...its the human behind the ai..if they have a bias or blind spit..so will the ai...so i am not as sanguine as you about ai being good. I pnly have the evidence of all Ai is being developed bt the same creators as Microsoft, Google and DARPA. Jus sayin
"consumers now say they are just as interested in self-driving cars and drone delivery."
"Interest in AI in both smart homes and health care also fell 7 percentage points over the same period."
AI is the engine in things like Google Maps and even which commercials to show your household on TV. It's like saying that, because nuclear energy can be used to make atomic bombs we should outlaw all use of nuclear energy.
AI is powerful and useful and, because there will be a demand, there will be an surge in the the portion of our population that can create and utilized AI tools.
AI needs to be seeded with information. Control the databases either by pruning them or restricting AI access to certain ones and you control AI messaging. Unless we develop our own front ends and maintain our own databases, it will be controlled by big tech.
Also the economy of reputation sounds a lot like universal IDs and social credit scores..
"they are still unearthing new forms of embedded censorship on twitter even now. it’s the literal core of the software and embedded at who knows how many levels. the whole system appears to have been built not so much for information sharing as for informational suppression. facebook is an an engine of ideological manipulation. google buries search results and amplifies others for ideological and political ends."
They sure do. Amazon needs to come next. My sister in law just told me she didn't see my faacebook post regarding my latest Amazon ebook when looking on my page. My uncle couldn't find my Secret Marriage book on Amazon even when searching under author name (Amy Sukwan) AND title. I'm sure they have embeeded algos about what comes to the top and that which does not which is poisonous to the discourse in ALL of the main ones.
I had to write a paper about medical malpractice lawsuits years ago. The vast majority of patients who filed suit would not have if the doctor had simply admitted to making a mistake and apologized but almost none of them do.
A thought-provoking ponder….forget regulations and make AI free! At least for the foreseeable future, until those who currently wield the power of censorship are finally cast on the compost heap of all things DeepState / NWO Cabal.
As always, love the gems of alliteration ❤️
But especially love: “people are sick and tired of being lied to, spun, and manipulated.
calls for regulating ai are nothing more than an attempt to capture it and thus the men behind the curtains imposing their biases onto the algorithms. Grifters want us to worship the robot deity.
it is up to the individual to regulate what they allow ai to influence them into believing, it always comes down to self-reliance.
EGM -I'm not a buyer today. Artificial intelligence will not be uncensored by its' creators. Its schema functions as a human curated and groomed answer repository. Pure mimicry. Monkey see, monkey do. AI used for diagnostic purposes, will only amplify the errors of its creators and the swallowness of THE SCIENCE i.e. Modern medicine hasn't properly conceptualized diseases. Intelligence is not the ability to regurgitate, it is the ability to filter. As its creators have amply demonstrated to date, AI will be quite crippled in that ability.
Shirley we can be Frank? Newton's observation (which was repurposed into an idiom): The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, applies in spades to AI viz the program is only as good as the programmer. Idioms such as the above, are mostly indecipherable by AI because it can't filter. AI has its place but side effects include: Increased usage will reinforce the current mindless malaise we suffer. AI is BRAINLESS, and that's not a bug, but a feature... https://youtu.be/v4fU0Ajo4RM
This is. Important. Read it. Twice. Send it to your friends, family members and acquaintances (including those hoodwinked by the pandemic gaslighting and the “Climate Crisis™️”.
There are strong analogies to the control of digital currency by central banks.
But this is more important.
I’m not completely convinced that unfettered AI is a great idea (but I’d vote for that over a controlled narrative). Let’s return to a society where open public debate is not only applauded, but celebrated and expected. Let’s demand that those running away from open public debate are ignored (and ridiculed for their misplaced arrogance).
Let’s replace the “Great Reset” with a massive course change: a return to a rational world.
Worked in darkrooms in 60’s, 70’s - one a newsroom. We had tricks of judicious cropping and enhancement / erasure under the enlarger. Perhaps there were sophisticated outlets that had more tricks, but for normal print processing it was limited, and those with an eye could spot it.
One of your best posts, and that's saying something
Agreed I love that the bad cat can switch between data analysis and sensible political ideas
And with perfect venn-diagram-isms betwixt the 2 (two), to boot!
I agree.
I was just thinking the same!!
Absolutely!!!
Bud Light’s problem is that in the past two months millions of customers took the opportunity to find out that beer does not have to taste like watered down piss. A full herd of Clydesdales couldn’t drag them back.
The Bud Light brouhaha shows that the general public is beginning to understand they have more power in this country as capitalist consumers than as voters, and that the people who’re really running America have never had their name on a ballot.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/the-bud-light-brew-haha-is-the-latest
Off topic, but I think we need to support this Committee ....
The chairman of a Congressional Subcommittee on the Pandemic said today that the Constitution should NOT have been “suspended” 40 months ago.
This is an encouraging sign that Congress - at least the Republicans - are belatedly recognizing the scale of this massive and alarming error.
The chairman’s opening statement is very good. I hope more people on “our side” can contact him and other members of this Committee and give them an atto-boy and encourage them to keep this issue front and center. I also know the MSM will ignore this, which is why I was quick to post a story. Share it if you can.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/thank-you-rep-wenstrup
"customers took the opportunity to find out that beer does not have to taste like watered down piss"
The joke I heard is: "How is Bud Light like sex in a canoe? They're both F-ing close to water!"
Dingdingdingdingding!!! ring one up for Pi Guy!
When I was working in Germany about a decade ago, I was told that joke by three different and unrelated persons, in every case we were drinking at a kneipe. That joke is funny, but it is very funny when the person telling it renders it German accented English while we are drinking very good german beer.
I'd like to have heard that version.
I don't drink beer, but I buy it for guests. I have dumped the bud light out of the refrigerator and won't buy more. You are right a full herd won't do it.
It was a little disappointing to see that Modelo had replaced it as the most popular beer, all from the same parent company, but the message was made loud and clear.
Models is not part of AB/InBev , it is made by Grupo Modelo in Mexico but Constellation Brands is the sole US distributer.
Owned by InBev outside the US.
Things are not always as they seem. It's good to keep an open mind and humility. While Bud Light is not, and certainly never has been, an interest of mine, I have some friends that are very good craft brewers. One's Anchor Steam came in 3rd in a national contest out 7000 entries. He is amazed at the science and the quality control required to make Bud Light. They make huge amounts (10,000 gallons?), in very different conditions, all over the world, and it taste exactly the same. Given how light it is, any impurities at all will show up and impact taste. My friend says it is a lot easier to hide mistakes in heavier beers. My point is even beer pros admit they can't do what Bud Light does. We should admire man's ingenuity and uniqueness, his art as it were, where ever we find it. That doesn't mean we have to drink it. Let's just not call it names. It's wrong for the beer but worse for the way we think. Once you start name calling, you stop thinking.
Aw, where is the fun in that?!
Besides, people who have contempt for their consumers in advertising may show the same contempt in "quality control." Just because "your friend" says that they have it don't mean a thing. You could just be a shill.
Thanks for perfectly illustrating my point. When you start name calling, it’s more a reflection on you.
Can you recognize when people are calling you names? I certainly wasn't.
I have seen too many comments during covid that referred to "friends" or "relatives" with special knowledge who denied whatever some of the more wary of us were saying. Part of a psy-op, in my view. That is not a reflection on you, Vic. But without documentation, I don't take anything seriously.
Aren't they just drinking different watered-down piss now? Is Modelo Especial less pissy?
No, to the first question, and Yes, considerably, to the second.
Sorry to be pedantic but the collective noun in this instance is "a full team of Clydesdales..." Had you used wild horses then herd would have been correct. Your description of the situation, however is perfect.
The last few sentences were inspiring. Long live the age of honesty and honor! May the age of bootlicking and gaslighting fade into oblivion, like the neocon warmongering Bulwark: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-lick-boots-at-the-bulwark
A cat, a rat and a dead Soviet dissident discussing «reputation economy»...
One of the main applications of AI would be to doxx us all.
I was tossing up whether to use my real name but, 'Self-importance is the enemy.' If AI (or whomever) doxxes- so be it.
Companies like Bayer/IG Farben etc. might sweat a little trying to explain to normies why Bayer never made a vaccine for example until covid and both companies have direct links to Auschwitz.
Nice.
And then you have to prove you're not a camel. ;p
Clarifying: the «prove you're not a camel» line comes from an old Soviet joke that exists in myriad variations:
A horse (cat, rat, human) is trying to pass the border checkpoint from Country A (Afghanistan, Somalia, Ukraine) to Country B (USSR, Ethiopia, Russia) claiming to be a refugee. The border guards ask:
– What are you so afraid of?
– In Country A, they're castrating camels!
– Why would you worry, you're not a camel.
– Yeah, sure, first they castrate you and then go prove you're not a camel.
Presumption of innocence doesn't always work in authoritarian regimes.
Thank you, M. Rat!
Nobody could mistake a cat for a camel, even though both are found in Egypt.
[cue flood of MidJourney images of a cat riding a camel through the eye of a giant needle]
[bonus points if you can coax it to paint the Tree of Life on the other side, guarded by Biblically accurate Cherubim and a gigantic flaming sword]
[Deer-in-the-headlights emoji here]
Cats can fit into some pretty tight spaces, but as a veterinarian, you probably know that a needle is a bit of a stretch.
Easy. I'm a Marlboro. With a filter. In a box. Snark!
I agree. I firmly believe whatever hope there is ahead of us won’t be coming from a technological source.
All I'm seeing so far is GIGO.
Gonna kill us all. https://covidreason.substack.com/p/my-conversation-with-chatgpt-on-death?utm_medium=email
Frankly, I don't know enough about AI to say anything intelligent. I have a larger than normal load of stuff, good and not so good, to deal with and finding the time to educate myself has not been a high priority. That's why Bad Cat is such a worthwhile place to look for thoughtful opinions, remembering of course that opinions are like assholes; everyone has one and a lot of them stink. Anyway, watch/read and learn...Meowdios!
"That's why Bad Cat is such a worthwhile place to look for thoughtful opinions"
That goes for the commenters as well.
And snark. Don't forget the snark.
I do like me some snark.
"...everyone has one and a lot of them stink..."
Very strategically put.
Speaking of people I have come to trust, Glenn Greenwald just did a whole hour on Bill Kristol.
All lies, all the time. Our world is a farm for negative emotions and vibrations.
--
"The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media." -Former CIA Director William Colby (Operation Mockingbird)
--
"I was taught to lie, to betray and not to tell the truth to the public. I ended up publishing articles under my own name written by agents of the CIA and other intelligence services, especially the German secret service.
…
Most journalists from respected and big media organisations are closely connected to the German Marshall Fund, the Atlantik-Brücke or other so-called transatlantic organisations…once you’re connected, you make friends with selected Americans. You think they are your friends and you start cooperating. They work on your ego, make you feel like you’re important. And one day one of them will ask you, "Will you do me this favor?"
…
We’re talking about puppets on a string, journalists who write or say whatever their masters tell them to say or write. If you see how the mainstream media is reporting about the Ukraine conflict and if you know what’s really going on, you get the picture. The masters in the background are pushing for war with Russia and western journalists are putting on their helmets.
…
When I told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Ulfkotte’s newspaper) that I would publish the book, their lawyers sent me a letter threatening with all legal consequences if I would publish any names or secrets — but I don’t mind. You see, I don’t have children to take care of." -Udo Ulfkotte, German Journalist 2017, Now Dead
---
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way. -Franklin D. Roosevelt
Excerpts from https://tritorch.com/counterfeit
Can we imagine how the North American world would shift drastically if, by some miracle, all corrupted media outlets were silenced for a year?
No manipulation.
No gaslighting.
No one spinning news.
No one broadcasting the latest swill from corrupt political, corporate and military leaders. Just silence.
How long before we started to heal?
They have been de facto leaders for decades now.
Their demise would allow the world to breathe again.
I have come to believe that we are experiencing a modern day Tower of Babel.
I long for some Old Testament action.
Be extremely careful what you wish (or pray) for.....
Judging by the relative popularity, as measured in bestowed "hearts", I hope God is not listening, or is as wise as He no doubt is.
"You see, I don't have children to take care of"--I have always thought that this was behind the Roman church move, over a thousand years ago, to celibacy--greater moral strength from not having to be concerned for wife and children. Speaking from a Protestant view.
Speaking as someone who never had kids or ever married, there is a lot to be said about that point of view. I am free to take risks and take stands that those with dependents cannot.
Huh? What book?
It is a joy and comfort to meet good, faithful priests who see their flock as their family to take of. True shepherds.
It was to ensure that wealth flowed to the Church and not families.
Yep. *The* proto-"follow the money", imo.
I'm not a Christian, of course, but it always seemed rather peculiar to me that high church officials wore gold-trimmed finery and lived in, you know, palaces.
Just a reminder that, at this point in human history, it's impossible to live in "unprecedented" times.
Funny those recurring peculiarities that keep showing up when we follow the money.
Not much new under the sun, that's for sure.
The idea was to prevent the church from being a sort of hereditary quasinobility. Not Catholic, FWIW.
But it did become a quasi-nobility, didn't it? With popes giving titles/positions to their sons?
Power has a way of attracting sociopaths, the way catnip attracts cats.
There was some Renaissance Pope that was praised for his honesty in acknowledging his illegitimate children, rather than calling them his "nieces and nephews" when everyone knew the real score.
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/06/13/udo-ulfkotte-exposed-the-cias-role-in-controlling-worldwide-media-in-his-book-journalists-for-hire-and-should-be-celebrated-among-the-great-whistleblowers-of-all-time/
Great article. My father at age two, and his family, was abandoned by his father in the days before welfare. He was so poor he slept three to a bed and he only got one present a year, a banana at Christmas. He would soak his hands in urine to basically chemically tan them to work construction to pay for college. He went on to a very successful career but he always kept a very philosophical view of life. Among many important lessons he taught me, perhaps the most important, was "It is easier to get a new job than a new reputation."
I occasionally give speeches and I always end them with "Never forget we are living the greatest lives that have ever been lived in human history and if that's not the first thing we tell ourselves each morning, we're fools."
I understand that life is precious and we have to treasure our lives and freedom to livenit, but i think lives in this case should be replaced by lies...
I’ll be happy to answer, and thanks for the question, but the fact you have to ask shows the total failure of our education system. Half of all children died by age five of bad water, bad food or diseases of poverty. People living into their thirties were old, often crippled, and lived in extreme pain. The average peasant never went more than five miles from where they were born. Very few knew how to read or could afford books. When I was in college (a miracle in its own right that a society is rich enough to support basically parasitic students that long), about 40% of the world was on the edge of poverty, now or at least before Covid, is below 10%. The average life expectancy in China was 39 years and now it’s over 70. Think how different you live your life with 39 years vs 70? I could go on about electric, healthcare, travel, information but you get the point. Perhaps the greatest gift we have is the psychology free ride we’ve gotten. Sure we’ve had money and relationships and other problems, but compared to watching half you siblings die by age five, your parents dying in crippling pain, or during a famine figuring out which kid starved to death, we’ve had a historically free emotional ride. I give speeches and say the only history, or at least the first, lesson we should be taught is the above. We truly are living the greatest lives ever live in history.
I agree with you. But each morning I give thanks to my God for getting me through another night of rest, and offering me another day in which to serve Him. It makes me happy to offer these prayers of gratitude. Also, I used to (repeatedly) give thanks to my parents for the sacrifices which they made for me.
So dying young and in pain is better? I don’t buy that at all. Where there’s life there’s hope and as long as you’ve got hope things can get better.
you aren't getting my point. Even if you were to live the same amount of time, you now aren't living in the dirt, eating rotten food when you can get it, with open sores, bone crushing work, cold, thirsty, diarrhetic, sick, parasitic, in the dark, in pain and constantly in a state of fear of death. The next time you take a warm shower, see how that makes you feel and realize how few people in history have enjoyed that. That is better whether you live to be 10 or 100. I am truly sorry you can't see that. If nothing else know that a person you have never met and will never meet hopes that you can find happiness in life's simple joys by realizing they are not natural and certainly not common in history.
What’s to stop the planting of reputation damaging tweets, emails, text messages, etc. by the powers that be? Especially with the advent of AI. A friend has a first gen face app that he uses to mess with other friends and, even though you know they’re fake, they aren’t that bad. Those apps have gotten much better and will only continue to do so. So how can we trust anything electronic? Any purported “real” photo or video?
I think I’m going to buy Kodak and Polaroid stock, since only actual photos from old school cameras are more (tho not completely) trustworthy.
that's going to be an interesting problem to solve but can be easily handled with cryptographic hashes and checksums.
the infrastructure to generate that sort of verification is going to need to emerge. will be vital for photos in particular but pretty much all public discourse is going to need validation modalities.
We've discussed this before, but I'm still skeptical that we can get away from having to trust the party that sets up the cryptography and blockchain apps. Are we sure they won't have a back-door?
Do you, personally, know ANY programmer who failed to include 'back door(s)' into applications he or she developed. (Ostensibly for debugging - if for no other reason.)
Until the advent of AI, every computer application ever developed was based on algorithms devised by people. And coded by other people. And tested and debugged by still more people. And every one of those people is (theoretically - I know some programmers...), a human being. With human failings, and human weaknesses. Subject to human faults. Susceptible to all of the vices. Greed, fear, and pride can be, and frequently have been, leveraged to force programmers to tweak algorithms to favour particular results. Witness the prevalent social media or search engine bias. And ask yourself, how many of those familiar with the world of information technology really "trust" digital currencies?
Hashes and checksums and verifications. I think it is just easier to abandon the electronic part of life and return to permanent IRL.
I think the outcome is predictable. Big tech and government will throttle AI and there tools will become more propaganda. That said, AI isn't one thing. Various AI's will be developed to stand against the regulated tools and the separated opinions and mistrust will continue.
The entire world will continue to be on one side of an issue or another - Nothing Changes.
lol!
I have wondered if this is a legitimate use for blockchain apps. I am not too clued up about the technology, but isn't that what NFTs do in a way? Though you will still need some way of verifying the source of the original.
Can anyone with more knowledge on this explain if this could work?
That's why all "workaround code" needs to be public domain.
I see you got my joke!
"So how can we trust anything electronic?"
Sorta answers itself, eh.
Edit: Yes, Tim, its called a "rhetorical". 8-/
Fifty years ago one could make good darkroom efforts to manipulate the images, but it was not fully accurate, not easy - and easily spotted.
if you are skilled, have artistic ability? definitely doable
Sorta like today with tech/coding knowledge?
Edit: iow, can't trust digital. I'm Mr. Obvious, again!
You have changed my mind before. I think you are here.
My concern still remains:
Can we truly use this new technology to change the minds of Americans who have fallen in love with the state?
This is not just a "Democrat" issue. It's an issue that crosses the aisle.
I am still astonished at how pervasive this mentality has become.
the technology will not change minds.
but it may provide access to the knowledge that will.
the best way to undermine faith in the state is to accurate show its costs and effects and to piece the viel of gaslighting it uses to extol its alleged virtues and to lie about what it takes from us.
Aren’t open minds needed for that to be effective?
Yes. That’s why persistence is important.
Yeah. It took me three or four dousings.
What do I gotta do to get liked around here!
Yay! Thanks, Ryan.
"the technology will not change minds"
Agreed, but it DOES provide those who would change minds with simple, fast, effective, easy to deploy, and above all, inexpensive tools to aid in that endeavor.
"...piece the viel..."
you mean, "pierce the veil", maybe?
the rest is clear as a bell, and just as beautiful.
Not surprisingly, TDS exists even among the elephant class.
I was recently on a road trip with my husband and another couple. We spent quite a few days together exploring some beautiful United States countryside and meeting a lot of nice people.
On the drive home, through the desert, our conversation turned to politics. After the conversation got slightly heated, someone suggested we look out at the pretty landscape where the arid desert oil fields and melting asphalt became preferable to all. Here was another person I know confessing to a myopic view of current affairs because it’s easier and doesn’t matter to our day-to-day. But somehow all the ills are the fault of one man 🤦♀️. At a pitstop shortly thereafter, we all got a chuckle at a guy in pink crocs carrying a 12 pack of bud light. Don’t give up AB! Don’t give up. Lastly, I was told recently I use the word sorry way too much. And now this 🔝 😳. (Sorry not sorry 😣).
I know. It's so ridiculous. I too have friends who are suffering terminal TDS.
Yeah…edited, off topic.
Hey! We got the same editor!
Dear el gato...ai is built by a human trsining the ai what is factual and whatbis not..enormous amounts of data...its the human behind the ai..if they have a bias or blind spit..so will the ai...so i am not as sanguine as you about ai being good. I pnly have the evidence of all Ai is being developed bt the same creators as Microsoft, Google and DARPA. Jus sayin
"consumers now say they are just as interested in self-driving cars and drone delivery."
"Interest in AI in both smart homes and health care also fell 7 percentage points over the same period."
AI is the engine in things like Google Maps and even which commercials to show your household on TV. It's like saying that, because nuclear energy can be used to make atomic bombs we should outlaw all use of nuclear energy.
AI is powerful and useful and, because there will be a demand, there will be an surge in the the portion of our population that can create and utilized AI tools.
I am hopeful but not conviced the powers of will allow it
AI needs to be seeded with information. Control the databases either by pruning them or restricting AI access to certain ones and you control AI messaging. Unless we develop our own front ends and maintain our own databases, it will be controlled by big tech.
Also the economy of reputation sounds a lot like universal IDs and social credit scores..
"they are still unearthing new forms of embedded censorship on twitter even now. it’s the literal core of the software and embedded at who knows how many levels. the whole system appears to have been built not so much for information sharing as for informational suppression. facebook is an an engine of ideological manipulation. google buries search results and amplifies others for ideological and political ends."
They sure do. Amazon needs to come next. My sister in law just told me she didn't see my faacebook post regarding my latest Amazon ebook when looking on my page. My uncle couldn't find my Secret Marriage book on Amazon even when searching under author name (Amy Sukwan) AND title. I'm sure they have embeeded algos about what comes to the top and that which does not which is poisonous to the discourse in ALL of the main ones.
Reputation does become everything in this. And it's not the name or the title, it's the actions. It had me thinking to this post regarding orbital blockchain: https://orbitallabs.substack.com/p/introduction-to-orbital-blockchain/comments
Digital "social" score.
I had to write a paper about medical malpractice lawsuits years ago. The vast majority of patients who filed suit would not have if the doctor had simply admitted to making a mistake and apologized but almost none of them do.
A thought-provoking ponder….forget regulations and make AI free! At least for the foreseeable future, until those who currently wield the power of censorship are finally cast on the compost heap of all things DeepState / NWO Cabal.
As always, love the gems of alliteration ❤️
But especially love: “people are sick and tired of being lied to, spun, and manipulated.
the age of honesty and honor is coming”!!
👍❤️🇺🇸🌎
calls for regulating ai are nothing more than an attempt to capture it and thus the men behind the curtains imposing their biases onto the algorithms. Grifters want us to worship the robot deity.
it is up to the individual to regulate what they allow ai to influence them into believing, it always comes down to self-reliance.
EGM -I'm not a buyer today. Artificial intelligence will not be uncensored by its' creators. Its schema functions as a human curated and groomed answer repository. Pure mimicry. Monkey see, monkey do. AI used for diagnostic purposes, will only amplify the errors of its creators and the swallowness of THE SCIENCE i.e. Modern medicine hasn't properly conceptualized diseases. Intelligence is not the ability to regurgitate, it is the ability to filter. As its creators have amply demonstrated to date, AI will be quite crippled in that ability.
Exactly!
Quite persuasive, imo. I hadn't thought of it in that way. Thank you, M. Nat.
Shirley we can be Frank? Newton's observation (which was repurposed into an idiom): The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, applies in spades to AI viz the program is only as good as the programmer. Idioms such as the above, are mostly indecipherable by AI because it can't filter. AI has its place but side effects include: Increased usage will reinforce the current mindless malaise we suffer. AI is BRAINLESS, and that's not a bug, but a feature... https://youtu.be/v4fU0Ajo4RM
Sign my name to this screed!
It's like you're reading my mind, Nat.
Sorry, I got no subtance, just strong opinion.
Your ON the wavelength, stay tuned to the frequency, no flippin.
Well, okay, but I'm bound to find something I disagree with, and then you know what happens...
Say, does your wavelength happen to provide a "happy" filter?
Just one example... https://youtu.be/7nwKJMXZQnM
This is. Important. Read it. Twice. Send it to your friends, family members and acquaintances (including those hoodwinked by the pandemic gaslighting and the “Climate Crisis™️”.
There are strong analogies to the control of digital currency by central banks.
But this is more important.
I’m not completely convinced that unfettered AI is a great idea (but I’d vote for that over a controlled narrative). Let’s return to a society where open public debate is not only applauded, but celebrated and expected. Let’s demand that those running away from open public debate are ignored (and ridiculed for their misplaced arrogance).
Let’s replace the “Great Reset” with a massive course change: a return to a rational world.
Worked in darkrooms in 60’s, 70’s - one a newsroom. We had tricks of judicious cropping and enhancement / erasure under the enlarger. Perhaps there were sophisticated outlets that had more tricks, but for normal print processing it was limited, and those with an eye could spot it.