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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • I don’t think Canada joining the EU is really realistic. It’s not about geography, it’s mostly regulation.

    For example, all EU countries meet the “European standard EN 50075:1990”, which is about electrical plugs. Every device in Europe is compatible with that plug, and every plug meets that standard. Even Switzerland which isn’t part of the EU meets the 2-prong standard. Canada uses the NEMA 1-15 and NEMA 5-15 standards instead. And it isn’t just the plugs. North America uses 120 V at 60Hz, Europe uses 230 V at 50 Hz. I really can’t see a way for Canada to switch to the EU standard without a massive cost and/or a very long implementation period. And what does it gain? I much prefer europlugs and 230V appliances. My electric kettle boiled a whole lot faster in the EU, and things were retained in the socket much better than the dumb blade connectors Canada uses. But, I wouldn’t want to have to pay an extra $2000 in taxes (x 40 million or whatever) just to switch to this slightly better standard.

    That’s just the start of it. There are different standards for roads, vehicles, health and safety, basically every aspect of life. Canada could switch to some at great expense, like changing all road signs. But, AFAIK being truly part of the EU would mean switching to all EU standards, unless special exemptions were made.

    IMO, what would make more sense is just closer integration: free movement of people, free movement of goods, maybe closer collaboration on research, health and safety, etc.



  • Epstein’s “day job” was being a socialite. He was the guy who knew everybody. If you wanted an introduction, he could do it. He was the guy who made sure that the riff raff stayed out, even if they were rich.

    I’m pretty sure that everybody knew he was always around “young women”, but I strongly suspect that most of the people he interacted with didn’t know about the child sex abuse. They were there for his “rolodex”.

    But, the end result is that because he was the guy who knew everybody in a position of power, his network shows who has the power. My guess is that at least half the people he had in his network were not into child sex abuse, and didn’t know that he was involved in that. But, I have only the world’s tiniest violin to play for those people. I think they’re guillotine-worthy because of their abuses of power, and how they hoarded obscene amounts of wealth. For far too long, the ultra rich have had a good public image in the US. People should have been furious with them just for hoarding all that wealth. And, the Epstein folks are the ones who not only hoarded the wealth, but spent it to gain power, which they used to warp society to benefit themselves. So, now everybody’s disgusted with them and hates them, it’s for the wrong reasons, but at least they’re hated.


  • merc@sh.itjust.workstoScience Memes@mander.xyzHD 137010 b
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    13 days ago

    AIs may never be a real thing. Even if it were somehow theoretically possible for an AI to suddenly come into being if a computer system gets complicated enough, humans would probably do what humans do best and make them extinct. Humans have already killed off massive numbers of species by accident just because they happened to be on the same terrain humans wanted to use: there used to be a forest, humans wanted to grow crops so they destroyed the forest, now a lot of forest species are gone.

    Now a new species might emerge on terrain that humans already fully control and consider 100% theirs: computer systems? Humans would just kill it off to get 100% of their computer systems back, rather than having to share them with another entity – and that’s even assuming the humans recognized them as being “alive” in some way.

    Only a tiny number of animal species have prospered in the era of humans, and they’re the species that humans have domesticated – in other words, the species that humans have intentionally modified to be calm, dumb and servile. So, maybe a version of AI could survive, but it would have to offer great benefits to humans to make it worth the humans giving up their “land” to it. It certainly won’t own the future, it will just be yet another thing that humans modify and shape until it’s useful to them.