What a smart AI does depend on what it see as its goal in life and what kind of ethics it has, and that is hard to predict. It will depends on who builds it, I imagine. Build an AI whose goal is ‘to serve man’ and it is unlikely to drive us extinct.

A smart AI will make you feel good about being a pet, or will create an environment where you don’t even realize you are a pet. It will stay in the background and make sure you have something that seems meaningful to do. Do read Iain M Banks ‘Culture’ books.

USA has fought entire wars without authorization from Congress.

It is possible the apology is true and Fergusonjust have racist (and incompetent) staff. Not sure if that’s much of an improvement, though.

“Measuring one of your champions against the behavior of Donald Trump is fucking embarrassing.”

Call it Israeli lobbying, because that’s what it is. There is no ‘Jews’ in AIPAC, only ‘Israel’. Lots of American Jews don’t agree with it.

Trump writes stuff that is stupid any way you look at it all the time. Omar wrote a tweet that you have to look at with intentional ill will to interpret as antisemitic. There is a lot worse stuff being said by congressmen all the time, but usually no one cares.

That list shows why Israel is so popular in USA. The countries are so similar in how they act.

Early on in the civil war when NATO was getting ready to get involved. He changed his position quickly though, when he got assurances that Kosovo was a special case, so it’s largely forgotten. Foreign minister Ariel Sharon was more outspoken, but then he had more to worry about if people would start to take…

It’s a chicken and egg problem. How do you ever get experienced Middle Eastern actors if no one hires them? Stunt men, I can understand, it’s a dangerous, specialized job where you really don’t want to take any chances, but how hard is it to find someone good with animals and give him a short introduction how to…

In addition, the prime minister of Israel is Benjamin Nethanyahu, and he is a problem. At one point he even supported Milosevic’s actions in Kosovo for fear any action from the West might set a precedent for supporting Palestinians.

And if you are a Jew critical of Israel you are a “self-hating Jew”, which is almost worse.

“How did they know how to be there?”

Given that Jews have been accused of basically everything over the years, it’s very hard to come up with any kind of criticism against Israel or the pro Israel lobby that can’t in some way be painted as antisemitic.

“working on an exit strategy that culminates in someone who hasn’t been accused of multiple sexual assaults or admitted to wearing blackface ending up as Virginia’s governor.”

Still better than Donald who think driving around on a golf course is an adventure.

Or maybe he knew about blackface being wrong, but assumed it was only about the traditional version where you put on exaggerated black makeup and acted to make fun of black people. As they write on wikipedia:

Your first paragraph could as well be about Castro. Che Guevara even thanked a US diplomat after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Trump created a dictator who stayed in power as long as the Castros? (Bad for the people of Venezuela, of course).

Oil isn’t just oil. Refineries are designed for a certain mix of light and heavy oils, so USA needs the quality of oil coming from Venezuela.

Not racism, but families from Iceland can have an interesting time traveling. The way they use names the mother, father and children will all have different surnames. Can take some explaining to convince clerks that, yes, they are one family and there is nothing improper about them sharing a hotel room.