Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

On the one hand, I am committed to writing a blog a day, on the other hand I am falling asleep in front of the keyboard, so back to the first hand again I don’t actually have to work tomorrow, so I’m going to compromise and say “Screw it. I’m going to sleep. I’ll write a blog in the morning.” Thank you for understanding.

As people who have followed this blog for a long time probably know, I love all things ape. Monkeys are cute, too, but watching Chimps, and Baboons, and Gorillas, and Orangutans absolutely blows my mind. We are not the only intelligent species on this planet.

I even consider that evidence of the likelihood that intelligent life has evolved on other planets: it has happened more than once here, so it’s not that unique of a thing.
When I saw this video two days ago, I did not realize it was two years old so there’s actually a possibility I have posted this before but, if so, I don’t remember and it doesn’t matter anyway because watching it the other day I was struck with a specific insight.
The video is cute, just 2 1/2 minutes long. An orangutan in a zoo reaches through the bars and grabs a man by his T shirt. The man is a bit freaked out but eventually gets out of the ape’s fearsome grip by giving up on the shirt. He doesn’t seem too happy at first but his girlfriend thinks it’s hysterical, so I’m sure he got over it.
But, I’m mostly impressed with what happens after that. The orangutan puts on the T shirt.
This might not sound like a great accomplishment, but are you a parent? How long does it take to teach a toddler to put on a T shirt? This is not such an automatic thing. Bear in mind that, although the orangutan has often seen people wearing T shirts but there is a good chance he has never actually seen somebody putting one on. (although maybe he had, I don’t know)
Anyway, the Orangutan figured it out in about a minute, maybe less. I wonder if he thought that would give him some credit with the humans. “Hey, I’m wearing clothes now! Does that mean you’ll let me out of here?”
Anyway, the whole incident showed me not only that Orangutans are smart, but that they want to be smarter. How long will it be until they are at our level?

So God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God he created them. Genesis 1:27

And mankind proceeded to invent computers, the internet (which I see as a very real example of artificial intelligence), and eventually will create the race of super intelligent androids which will replace us. As long as we don’t forget to program in some version of Asimov’s laws, I don’t object.
If human beings can create something superior to ourselves, then we should. That is magnificent. That is parenthood.
Not to do so, in the face of the knowledge that we could, would be self-limiting. It would be refusing to play because we are afraid of losing, it would be competing in a lower division just so we could be on top.
It just seems natural, though, that whatever form of artificial intelligence emerges, it will be in the image of man. It will have, to some extent, our tastes, our instincts, our dreams. Consider the internet. Nobody predicted just how popular internet porn would be, but we should have been able to. Sex is pretty basic. The obsession with cats, though, took me totally by surprise. I am not a cat person, but apparently, billions of people are. The internet has a mind of it’s own, but it is a mind it inherited from us.
Today, I saw a rather frightening aspect of this. I was just trying to look at an article somebody had linked to on facebook, and I got a screen which said “Please rotate your phone to portrait.” This struck me as very weird, because I was not using a phone. I’m not up with all the cool kids. I generally use my phone as a phone, sometimes as a camera. When I’m using the internet, or writing this blog, I am using a computer. Sitting in the same chair, and chasing the rabbit out from underneath, where she would like to chew on the cables if she could get away with it.
It made me realize, though. When we eventually create a race of super intelligent androids, there is one type of human being they will resemble more than others.
They will be insufferable nerds.

I just read three articles which all paint a very different picture of space exploration.

The first was about the first color photos, and most detailed color photos yet, of Pluto. My first impression is that since Pluto has a moon, it deserves to be called a planet, even if it is small. My second impression was that, even though these are the best photos yet, they are still just a blurry little blotch of color.
The second article was about the discovery of an extremely distant exoplanet, at 13,000 light years away. I don’t know if it is the most distant exoplanet ever discovered, but it is among the most distant.
Of course, one wonders if the photos of Pluto are so grainy, and that’s still in our own solar system, how do we see an exoplanet 13,000 light years away at all. Well, we don’t. They infer its existence through the changes in light from its sun.
Then the third article, which was an extremely defeatist and negative piece saying that since we have examined 100,000 other solar systems or so, and haven’t heard any radio signals saying “Hey, we’re here! We’d like to make contact. We really enjoyed that ‘I Love Lucy’ show,” we should just give it up and admit that we’re alone in the universe.
We will never give up. It would be totally against human nature to give up. A thousand years from now, after we’ve established cities on Mars and turned the asteroid belt into a giant beltway around the sun, after we’ve launched Stanford Torus ark ships to hundreds of other star systems, if we still haven’t found anybody else, we will still be looking.
Because you never really stop looking for something until you find it.

There are now 3 people running for the Democratic nomination for president. I expect there will be more, but for now there are 3. Hillary Clinton, of course. The woman.

That’s one reason to support her. It would signal a change. Another reason is that nobody raises Republicans’ blood pressure like Hillary.
But that’s not enough. She voted for the Iraq War, she is O.K. with fracking, and she is a little bit too cozy with the big money people.
Then there’s Martin O’Malley, former Maryland governor and Irish folk singer.
And, as of today, we have Lincoln Chafee. Who names their kid Lincoln? I guess when you’ve already had two governors and two U.S. Senators in the family, and you’re Republicans, it makes sense. Yes, that’s right. He was a Republican up until 2007. But, as a Senator, he voted against the war in Iraq, so he’s a better Democrat than Hillary was, at that point.
And, whereas Hillary is cozy with the elites, Chafee is an elite. That doesn’t necessarily disqualify him. FDR came from a similar, old money, political family. For that matter, so did his cousin Theodore, and Washington and Jefferson.
So, so far it’s between those 3. Despite Hillary’s money and big connections and name recognition, it’s going to come down to who organizes best and gets their people out to the precinct caucuses in Iowas next year.
If Hillary comes in 3rd in Iowa, she won’t get the nomination.

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RIP former Czech Prime Minister Stanislav Gross. Like most Czech politicians, he was a bit of a crook, but 45 is just too young to die.