RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/06/is_genocide_too_powerful_a_word.html

Genocide is a potent word.  It refers to the decimation of an entire group.  It results in destruction on a massive scale.  It defies the imagination even though we have often witnessed it in the 20th century.

To most people, it is the concerted evisceration of a particular group, whether they be Jews annihilated by the Nazis, Uyghurs by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), or the Ukrainians by Stalin.  Of the latter, the term Holodomor comes to mind.  It was a man-made famine that affected the Soviet republic of Ukraine from 1932 to 1933, causing mass starvation in grain-growing regions.  In acknowledgment of its scale, the famine is often called the Holodomor, a term derived from the Ukrainian words for hunger (holod) and extermination (mor).”

These events need to be understood as the prelude to global actions that are now convulsing the world and whose ultimate goal is the destruction of human life.

Often begun as a bid for the welfare of humanity, these decisions must be regarded as the “alibis of tyrants” with resultant deadly consequences.

Consider the dictates that have caused and will continue to cause food shortages and starvation.

https://lawliberty.org/why-ai-cant-think/

Just for fun, I tease the hell out of ChatGPT in spare moments. Chatbots have no self, that is, no purpose for existing, and therefore can’t think. There is no such thing as thought in the abstract: thought is always someone’s thought, and mental activity doesn’t constitute thought unless it comes from a thinker who has a reason for thinking. To think, we must distinguish between significant and insignificant objects of thought, that is, those that matter to us and those that don’t (the exception that proves the rule is paranoid schizophrenia, which makes everything significant).

Higher thought is self-conscious, in that it involves awareness of how we think. Kant distinguished between Vernunft, usually translated as “reason,” as opposed to Verstand, the simple categorizing and sorting function of the mind, or “understanding.” The English translation doesn’t quite convey the difference: Vernunft derives from the same root as Vernehmen, “to interrogate.” It implies a critical examination of how we think.

That helps explain why ChatGPT does so badly with self-referential jokes that it hasn’t heard before. GPT has no self, and the switch of the vantage-point of subject—what makes self-referential jokes funny to begin with—leaves it confused.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/owner-of-two-of-san-franciscos-largest-hotels-pulling-out-of-city-path-to-recovery-remains-clouded/

The owner of two of San Francisco’s largest downtown hotels is stopping mortgage payments and going into foreclosure on the properties, stating that the city faces “major challenges” and that reducing exposure to the market is in the best interest of investors.

Park Hotels & Resorts said Monday that it was stopping payment on a $725 million loan secured by the two hotels, the 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square and 1,024-room Parc 55.

The Hilton is San Francisco’s largest hotel, and Parc 55 is the fourth largest.

Thomas J. Baltimore Jr., CEO of the Virginia-based company, called the decision “very difficult, but necessary,” noting record-high downtown office vacancy, “concerns over street conditions,” and reduced convention business.

“After much thought and consideration, we believe it is in the best interest for Park’s stockholders to materially reduce our current exposure to the San Francisco market,” Baltimore said in a prepared statement. “Now more than ever, we believe San Francisco’s path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges – both old and new.”

The announcement comes less than a week after the San Francisco Travel Association launched a $6 million ad campaign – it’s biggest ever – to lure tourists back to the troubled California city.

The Always San Francisco campaign calls San Francisco “the most beautiful city in the world.” It features images of iconic San Francisco landmarks, opening with a drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. The opening ad has scenes of people dancing, drinking, and eating, and includes one pink-haired drag queen, Lady Camden, a one-time contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/the-millenarian-harms-race?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The adviser on artificial intelligence (AI) to the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, says the world has about two years to prevent AI from threatening the human race.

Almost every day, it seems, experts are making bone-chilling predictions about the imminent threat to humanity from AI. Godfrey Hinton, the computer scientist who is considered to be the Dr Frankenstein to this monster, warned weeks ago about his own creation:

These things could get more intelligent than us and could decide to take over, and we need to worry now about how we prevent that happening.

Last month, more than 350 executives and researchers from the world’s biggest AI laboratories issued a joint statement that 

mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority.

Scientists at the Future of Life organisation wrote in an open letter:  

AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity.

Yet almost every day, it seems, experts are making bone-chilling predictions about the imminent threat to humanity from climate change.