So many other things are also non-binary, but people insist that not being 100% on their side means you’re a million percent on the extreme opposite hateful wrong side.

I don’t even see the numbers anymore, I just see blonde… brunette… redhead…

Click, click, clickity-click, click.

I’m in!

Hard to call any of the various reasons the biggest. Space travel is an evolving discipline that takes vast amounts of money, step-by-step engineering progress, time to learn through acquire practical experience and learn from it, political commitment, and constantly changing public opinion. In theory we already know how to do space mining, it but in practice we don’t know all the challenges we’ll run into, and therefore have not solved yet. The long-term ROI is unquestionably huge but unknown.

For example, platinum is currently worth almost $1000 USD/oz, while aluminum is about 8 cents. If platinum became as available as aluminum this would radically change. We would discover new uses for platinum that haven’t been imagined yet because it’s so expensive - nobody would think of making pie pans or window frames out of it, but physically it might be far superior. Its properties haven’t been explored nearly as fully as the properties of aluminum, but they would be, and nobody knows the result. Maybe there’s an easy way to do antigravity using platinum. Whatever - the point is we don’t know, and that’s just one specific metal. Opening up whole new realms of possibility always creates progress.

If “not have” means abort, I don’t think it’s ever wrong not to have a baby. People should only have kids if they want them and can commit to being good parents for the long haul. “Maybe it will save our marriage” and “God says so” are equally shitty examples of reasons to have kids.

One time I heard a Canadian newscaster call the US “the lower provinces” lol. Seems like it must be a common term if they used it so casually on the news.

In the theoretical endgame employment is reduced to where there aren’t enough people with money to be customers. There’s a wave of consolidation as businesses with lots of cash buy failing ones, further concentrating wealth. Eventually the impoverished public gets desperate enough to riot and steal what they need, outnumbering law enforcement. The system no longer has the resources to protect itself, and we physically demolish our society. Then there’s a reset back to a time of bartering.

It’s legitimate to question why we would want to replace human artistry with AI. Somebody might have asked the same question about replacing hand tools with power tools. But I wouldn’t be a longtime amateur woodworker if all I had to work with was hand tools - the work would be far too time consuming and the learning curve much too high. Or ask content creators who are able to get their ideas in front of the public without learning HTML, CSS or Javascript, what they think of content creation tools. Was making MySpace etc. available 20 years ago a bad thing because it changed our view of programming?

Enabling millions of people to jump traditional entry barriers is a good thing, even if it means we no longer look at the creative process as being reserved for people with natural talent or years of training. TBH you might as well object to Bob Ross teaching people easier ways to paint, or to people who teach breadbaking on YouTube - it turns out bread is dead simple btw, you should try it.

But more to the point, the genie is out of the bottle, and no amount of objection is going to stuff it back in.

Doesn’t sound like a denial - I thought so!!!

Why do people who post loaded questions approve of pedophilia and torturing kittens?

Same principle as, “A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client?”

And what’s up with cab drivers and B.O. - how long are those shifts? I’m thinkin’ Hey!

Might get around to tidying this 20-year-old mess up a bit - tho I’m not sure where to start lol.

I am not a proud man.

Sing me a song, you’re the bananaman…

I would think airplanes - the accident rate per mile is far lower so there’s much less opportunity for failures, and airplane maintenance and use are much better regulated, making it easier to eliminate the autopilot as the cause if something does go wrong. For a long time after airlines start using full auto they will probably still have pilots in the cockpit for quite a while even if they don’t do anything.

If you can find another job that makes you happier, there is no bad reason to change.

Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Oh, HELL yes.

That’s what I thought. the atmosphere is a big slow-reacting sponge. The coldest day of the year is usually in early February. By that time the slow lengthening of daylight since the solstice starts to warm things back up.

I always thought it was because in mid northern hemisphere latitudes where most people live, the coldest day of the year (i.e. “the middle of winter”) tends to be in early February, not the winter solstice.

Cuz we’re generally more full of shit than we like to admit.