Recently the Appeal to Authority Logic Fallacy has been foisted off on readers of publications, on the Web and off. Google “global gun deaths.” This looks like an annual proclamation — global gun deaths at 250,000. The latest flurry of stories stem from a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Through some sleight of mind, the compilers leave out direct explication of war-related deaths.
Category: Nobody Asked, But
Cybernauts Bite the Dust
In the past week, we have had two gamers commit suicide, but taking others with them. In San Diego, CA, Trevor Heitmann left the mortal coil by driving the wrong way, at excessive speed, on an expressway, but he took with him a mother and daughter in another vehicle. In Jacksonville, FL, at a game competition, David Katz shot many other gamers, killing two, then he shot himself.
McSkillet
When will we build a wall to stop the McSkillets of the world? Why didn’t the heightened activity of ICE keep Rivera away from Mollie Tibbetts? (Although McSkillet killed three times as many as did Rivera.) Wasn’t anybody on duty while Manafort stole $ millions?
Crossroads
We are at the crossroads. We are at a critical station. Will we decide to continue on down, down to the kleptocracy? For awhile, being a robust fledgling nation, we were happy with the richness of freedom without responsibility.
A Little Learning Is A Dangerous Thing
On the drive to work this morning, I was listening to an audiobook, This Idea Is Brilliant. The second essay in this compilation really caught my imagination; The “Illusion of Explanatory Depth” by psychologist Adam Waytz. It refers to the general existence of wide information, but with shallow understanding.
We Can’t Survive at $X/Hour
If an $X per hour wage is the minimum wage, you are right. Most can’t survive at that level. You must move up or you will move down (into the gray labor market or the black labor market). As Thomas Sowell says, the real minimum wage is $0.
Fake News II
It is an irony that a man, a man without a lot of substance, a man made by the media, is now POTUS. It is a further irony that we are at this pass because the media manipulated the man, while the man manipulated the media. Both sets of manipulation continue.
Fake News
POTUS likes to take credit for things that are going to happen anyway. Thus it is with “fake news.” Fake news is really incompetent news. And incompetent news has been around for a long time, as it will be as long as there is news.
Down Hill Racer
If your grandfather came up with an explanation for forest fires that defied all logic, how worried would you be? Remember, he is not a forester.
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
We don’t even know where to start, but the idea of making machines like humans is bonkers. There at least 3 disparate ways to go. Shall we replicate the way that the human brain works? Shall we fool disinterested observers into mistaking a machine for a human? Shall we quit playing games and get on with a peaceful coexistence between homo sapiens and the machines that she builds?