90 Miles From Tyranny

Monday, July 18, 2022

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Migrant Raped Nine-year-old Swedish child and left her in a coma...

A 9-year-old Swedish girl was raped and left for dead on a playground by an Ethiopian migrant, who had just obtained a permanent residence permit. The little girl is still in a coma.

A “minor” is suspected of the crime against the young victim: brutal rape and attempted murder at a playground in Skellefteå. There is no known connection between the victim and her attacker, according to Swedish news outlet Samnytt.se.

The 13-year-old boy suspected of trying to kill a nine-year-old girl in Skellefteå may in fact be older than he claims. This is what Andreas Nyberg, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation, told several media outlets.

Nyberg told TV4 that the criminal qualification in this case, in addition to attempted murder, is now aggravated rape of a child. The seriously injured girl is still in hospital in a critical condition and has still not regained consciousness.

The prosecutor said that the age of the suspected immigrant, allegedly aged 13, was uncertain, and that it is possible that he is in fact of age.

Investigators are currently scrambling to gather documents to pinpoint the boy’s real age. In addition, he will undergo a medical assessment to determine his age.

The suspect and his family arrived in Sweden from Ethiopia in the summer of 2017. The boy has been accused of abusing other girls and young women in Skellefteå.

Last summer he was suspected of assaulting an adult woman in the city. He is known in the municipality and has been moved to different schools. Despite this, at the end of June this year, he obtained a permanent residence permit in Sweden.

The suspect was neither arrested nor detained because of his “young age”. This fact has especially aroused strong reactions, both in...

This vast multi-faceted subject will bewilder almost everyone for years to come.

We know this because Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, billionaire brainiacs, disagree diametrically. So how can the rest of us find solid ground?

Musk casually asserts, "A.I. is a fundamental threat to the existence of human civilization." Zuckerberg answers with some petulance, "A.I. is going to make our lives better. ... Doomsday scenarios are pretty irresponsible."

People have been lecturing about climate change for many years, claiming this or that will happen in 25 years, 50 years, or 100 years. What is proven? A.I. is going to happen faster, and we will see it happen. Musk urges major countries to restrict research on A.I. before it's too late. Not likely. If you want something to keep you up at night, A.I. may be the thinking person's choice.

All the hardware is moving faster, according to Moore's Law. But that isn't where the action is. Algorithms are the rules or instructions that tell machines what to do. Math geniuses are cleverly devising more ingenious algorithms. They used to give the rules of a game to the machine. No more. Now they tell the computer to study a thousand great games and figure out what it should do to win its next game. Surprising things happen. Moves scorned by experts turn out to be genius!

The Chinese, ever chauvinistic, always assumed that a Chinese man would be the Go champion of the world forever. Well, well, you can imagine the shock to the system when the current star lost to the machine. Condescending toward A.I. the week before, the Chinese military were suddenly big believers. And what is Musk's takeaway from that? "Competition for A.I. supremacy will lead to World War III."

The old doomsday scenarios, nuclear or climate or whatever, were always more circumscribed. Life could be wiped out in one part of the planet, but other parts would not notice. A.I. is already part of everything and proliferating. For example, economists have been fretting for years about what jobs will be left for ordinary humans when robots can do all almost every job better. Massive job disruption seems guaranteed.

People who track public schools often conclude that our classrooms are doing a lousy job. Meanwhile, poorly educated Americans are encouraged to enjoy sports betting, recreational drug use, and a life on welfare. The geniuses at the top of our society seem determined to turn humans into second-class citizens unlikely to deal constructively with so many first-class machines. Bad timing or bad intentions?

Now, for a completely different kind of perplexity, let's hang around the office when the first robot workers have been welcomed into the workforce. Robots should probably be marked with black and white stripes to avoid problems, but research shows, for example, that patients prefer robot nurses that look like real nurses.

There is now a whole separate industry in robotics that we might call hair and make-up. Extreme realism is doable. Robot eyes can dilate, lips can purse, feelings can crawl across a woman's face. We have probably already crossed the threshold where an uninformed person chatted with a robot for half-hour and didn't realize it. Creepy.

There is a growing industry devoted to sexy A.I. Will they be second spouses? Or how about a live-in mistress? Will wives accept that? Will there be office romance and jealousy? Some people will probably run screaming in the direction of normalcy, but maybe other people will say, Let robots run free; it's their right. In general, robot shock will be a common experience.

Super-machines and faux humans will likely be welcome additions throughout the society but at the same time a source of unpredictable and perhaps uncontrollable menaces. Imagine people who never have a hair out of place, who never say the wrong thing. You can make them as handsome or pretty as you wish, and as brainy. Can a human love a robot or vice versa? What laws are relevant? Robots can be made to look just like the people you now work beside. How will you feel when you realize...

Visage à trois #366

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #532

Satellite Imagery Shows Global Crop Declines – Except For Russia And China

Infrared satellite imagery designed to measure moisture levels and the health of farmlands suggests that staple crops such as wheat are in poor condition and in sharp decline among major exporters including the Ukraine, the US and India. Two countries do have bumper crops so far though; namely Russia and China.

It is hard to say which governments and institutions monitor this data, but a few months ago a multitude of political leaders and global banks issued simultaneous warnings of a “global food shortage” and an impending crisis. Such institutions included the IMF, World Bank, the BIS and even the White House. So far, a perfect storm of stagflation, supply chain disruptions and poor weather conditions have combined to disrupt food production around the world.

Price inflation due to central bank stimulus measures has been enough to do incredible damage to the many national economies, but a single bad year for crops on top of this could spell disaster.

Russia and China, on the other hand, are enjoying a strategic advantage. As we entered spring of this year, the mainstream media heralded the end of the Russian economy and the swift collapse of their war efforts in Ukraine. Today, Russia is selling more oil and exporting more commodities than ever before, and both Russia and China now have the most healthy staple crops in the world. It's almost as if the public in the west has been deliberately misled about our economic strength.

Sadly, many people in the west have forgotten the importance of commodities, industry and energy in terms of geopolitical leverage. Without dominance of these three arenas there is no chance for a nation or group of nations to dictate terms to a country that has such advantages. Economic warfare is about independent production and adaptability; these are two things the US and Europe do not have right now.

With declines in crop exports, food prices will rise even further this year and there is also the possibility that Russia could cut off the EU and other nations from access to their agricultural market. Though the Kremlin says this will not happen, given the right trigger event it remains a legitimate threat. Already this month Europe is on the edge of an economic cliff as they wait to see if the Russian “maintenance shutdown” of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline is actually temporary, or the beginning of a full bore energy crisis that will last for years.

In other words, the temptation for the eastern nations to use food as a weapon against NATO countries will be just as high on their list as oil and gas. With food and energy stability in doubt there is also a considerable danger of civil unrest. Third world nations are likely to see the worst of the shortages, but price inflation in necessities is here to stay for first world countries as well. And along with that comes all the associated economic problems, including rising crime, rising...