3 catastrophic problems with Robotic AI, and 2 solutions

The threat of AI can be summarised into three points, and each of those points assumes something slightly different about AI. There is an economic, political or physical threat from AI, directly. I have no intention of scaremongering in this post, but I do think these are questions that need to be talked about and…

Asteroids and comets: a common good

The planet needs to decide who asteroids and comets belong to, because I don’t think they belong to the first person to send a rocket up to collect them. And, if we try to have that discussion after the mining of space has made Earth’s first trillionaire, then it will be just too late. That…

Can abortion ever be banned, while maintaining female rights?

Madblog recently wrote a series of posts. (Recent relative to when I wrote this, anyway.) Her posts were about abortion, the two pertinent points being this: abortion is a genocide, just like the Nazi extermination of the Jews; and, in response to the indignation she subsequently received, to set the challenge for atheists (because, as…

Climate change is real, the “realists” are wrong and we can solve this problem (if we try)

Approximately 64% of Americans do not think climate change is a threat to their way of life. That 64% will be made up of climate change deniers as well as people who call themselves climate change “realists”. This is a hugely concerning problem; democracy demands that people are aware of the problem before action can…

Deep Ecology, Eco-Moral Nihilism and Meat Eating

Contrary to many environmental philosophies, I think it is important to recognise humans as occupying a special niche within nature. Eco-philosophies often have the assumption that humans are, in fact, indistinguishable from the rest of nature and the logical conclusion is that humans have no special rights to abstraction and interference. I think the logical…

Technology Review: massage chairs

While I was at Allgeau airport I found a few Euro coins in my pocket, and you can't exchange coins. So I obviously used the dead money on a massage chair available at the airport: €2. And it wasn't bad. It does, rather disturbingly, remind me of the massages I give, so it's another step…

My Eclectic Musings

My last few posts have been about an eclectic mix of things: a linguistic question on the difference between facts and opinions, the Higgs boson and flooding in the Southwest of England, an environmental opinion on Pandas, a brief snippet of my own thinking process using an etch-a-sketch and some health and fitness advice. I’m…