Love your optimism

You’re right. I was being very Ameri-centric. I subconsciously interchange free speech and the first amendment even though they are not equal.

I do believe that individuals and private institutions should have this right to react though. I don’t agree with how it was used in this situation, but I absolutely believe the hospital should have the right to terminate someone based on the opinions they openly share.

If this same employee was sharing an anti-vax opinion I would want the hospital to be able to remove them from the role.

That is not what free speech means.

Free speech means the government cannot prohibit free speech. A private institution can take any lawful action they want in retaliation/reaction.

I agree that it really sucks that saying something true can get you fired, but this isn’t an infringement of the first amendment.

The interesting thing about the court is their power comes from our belief in their legitimacy. They don’t have any repercussions if the executive and legislature completely ignores their rulings.

It’s a double edged sword. If they allow this to happen, democracy crumbles under a new admin. If they do anything to deter authoritarians getting into power is technically anti-democratic too.

Either this admin undermines the belief in democracy by stopping an authoritarian administration to participate in elections or they allow the authoritarians to run and hope the electorate aren’t complete idiots (in a voting system rigged towards the authoritarians via the electoral college).

This is the way.

Command statement = an action

Question statement = a status

It is a politically savvy and ethically correct move. Really nice when those line up.

The argument I’m making is that we should not call them chemicals when they don’t have the capacity to make chemical reactions.

An analogy could be how we use the word weed. We call unwanted plants weeds. If there is mint growing in your yard and you don’t want it, it’s a weed. If you sell your house and the next owner likes it that mint is not a weed anymore. It’s still mint (element) but no longer a weed (chemical).

You make a good point. I should have said “things in the plasma state” should not be considered chemicals.

Hydrogen and Helium are elements, I guess it depends on what your definition of a chemical is.

The reason I’m saying plasma is not a chemical is because it is too energetic to make atom to atom bonds which I feel is the basis for chemistry. If something cannot interact chemically I feel we should not consider it a chemical.

Please note that I did not look up any formal definitions, just expressing my reasoning for my argument. (Aka I’m probably wrong).

I think plasma isn’t a chemical since the elements can’t form molecules. So the sun and lightning aren’t chemicals.

I get the sentiment, but this is a pretty strawman argument.

But we can’t get a database for firearms?

Hard to tell if this is a proposal to fight over hardware or an offer for free stuff.

I choose to believe the former because it makes me chuckle more.

What is the easiest way to look that information up?

I heard a hypothesis that the first human made consciousness will be an AI algorithm designed to monitor and coordinate other AI algorithms which makes a lot of sense to me.

Our consciousness is just the monitoring system of all our bodies subsystems. It is most certainly an emergent phenomenon of the interaction and management of different functions competing or coordinating for resources within the body.

To me it seems very likely that the first human made consciousness will not be designed to be conscious. It also seems likely that we won’t be aware of the first consciousnesses because we won’t be looking for it. Consciousness won’t be the goal of the development that makes it possible.

I think you two are speaking about different steps in this hypothetical transition. You are talking about the long term goal, the other person was talking about the transition from now to the long term scenario. There is very real danger that the power vacuum left by the x-billionaires could be gobbled up by a small group of people. This cannot be dismissed even if we all agree on the end goal.

Secondary critique, set the wealth cap in relation to some other moving metric. I think a multiple of minimum wage would be great, give incentive for the wealthy to increase minimum wage to achieve a higher cap.

Can someone provide a summary on what this means? I thought there were malicious exploits in this. Why is it back up and the perpetrator unbanned?

I agree with you, but I don’t think it means we stop the pursuit. It won’t be viable or cheap enough in time to help in the transition off fossil fuels. If it does pay off the way some people think it may be a viable energy source for carbon sequestration to undo some of our stupidity though. I think it’s worth that moonshot.

I like this concept. I do think it would generally slow resource extraction because companies would be more wary to invest in the large infrastructure if they don’t have perpetual ownership of the land. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, just an outcome I think is likely.