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Showing posts from July, 2023

Want to quickly spot idiots? Here are five foolproof red flags

Want to quickly spot idiots? Here are five foolproof red flags Arwa Mahdawi https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/23/how-to-spot-idiots-jb-pritzker-northwestern-speech The governor of Illinois went viral with a speech about seeing idiots in one’s midst. I have a few pointers of my own to offer Sun 23 Jul 2023 06.02 EDT “If you want to be successful in this world, you have to develop your own idiot detection system,” the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, recently told the Northwestern University Class of 2023. Pritzker, a billionaire and self-described “cheugy dad”, clearly knows a thing or two about successful commencement speeches: his talk has gone viral. While the 20-minute speech, which was organized around quotes from characters in The Office series, wasn’t entirely about idiot-spotting, that section of it seemed to resonate the most. You can see why. We live in a golden age of grifters, bullshitters and scammers. We live in an age where some of the world’s most po

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Conspiracy Theories Finally Get Around to the Jews

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/07/rfk-jrs-conspiracy-theories-finally-get-around-to-the-jews.html?utm_source=flipboard.com&utm_medium=social_acct&utm_campaign=feed-part THE NATIONAL INTEREST JULY 15, 2023 Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Conspiracy Theories Finally Get Around to the Jews COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted”? Uh, sure. By Jonathan Chait, who’s been a New York political columnist since 2011. The most astonishing aspect, and perhaps the only redeeming thing, about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s spree of conspiracy theories is that it had improbably managed to avoid directly implicating the Jews. But the respite from anti-Semitism was doomed to end. Conspiracy theorists are drawn gravitationally to the Jews, and Kennedy was only able to defy it for so long before his natural and predetermined course set in. At a dinner this week, reported by the New York Post, Kennedy floated a theory about the origins of COVID-19 that is even more unhinged than his previous theories: We’

Five ways AI might destroy the world

Five ways AI might destroy the world: ‘Everyone on Earth could fall over dead in the same second’ Artificial intelligence is already advancing at a worrying pace. What if we don’t slam on the brakes? Experts explain what keeps them up at night https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/07/five-ways-ai-might-destroy-the-world-everyone-on-earth-could-fall-over-dead-in-the-same-second Five ways AI could improve the world Steve Rose Interviews by Steve Rose @steverose7 Fri 7 Jul 2023 00.00 EDT Artificial intelligence has progressed so rapidly in recent months that leading researchers have signed an open letter urging an immediate pause in its development, plus stronger regulation, due to their fears that the technology could pose “profound risks to society and humanity”. But how, exactly, could AI destroy us? Five leading researchers speculate on what could go wrong. 1 ‘If we become the less intelligent species, we should expect to be wiped out’ It has happened many times before th

Five Lies Our Culture Tells

Five Lies Our Culture Tells The cultural roots of our political problems. April 15, 2019 Credit...Damon Winter/The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/opinion/cultural-revolution-meritocracy.html 1.2K David Brooks By David Brooks Opinion Columnist 阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版 Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. Four years ago, in the midst of the Obama presidency, I published a book called “The Road to Character.” American culture seemed to be in decent shape and my focus was on how individuals can deepen their inner lives. This week, in the midst of the Trump presidency, I’ve got another book, “The Second Mountain.” It’s become clear in the interim that things are not in good shape, that our problems are societal. The whole country is going through some sort of spiritual and emotional crisis. College mental health facilities are swamped, suicide