I want to visit newzeland because I have seen lord of the ring.

Would travel around the world chasing girls.

Visited there twice myself.

Too crowded and too expensive.

Hell no I am not prepared. But oh well, I don't think one will happen in the near future so I'm good.

Watson is nowhere near reaching human intelligence; current AI methods are very far from that. So much so in fact, that only fairly recently has the search for a strong AI (real, human level AI) resumed after the initial hype. For the last few decades the field has mostly shifted to machine learning; that is, searching for solutions for the "simpler" problems like computer vision and so on. Now, it's true that a computer can currently store and organize a lot of information into categories and derive some meaningful information from it; but that is still very far from what a human can do.

As for the second part I emphasized, a lot of human tasks require far more than this. But you're right, a lot of jobs would be rendered obsolete if we decided to automate what we could tomorrow, even without a strong AI.



You're right, most jobs nowadays are in the service sector, and depending on what metrics you use, they do provide better working conditions. But I believe you're wrong in assuming automation won't be disruptive to most people's livelihood.

I mean, let's take your example of the supermarket: I don't know where you live, but near me I have several supermarkets that have a few "self-service" check out counters; there is no reason why this can't eliminate everyone working at that station. Information areas? A couple of computers can do the trick for most things, and they can contact someone as a last resort (and probably remotely). A lot of the shelves can be redesigned to be filled in automatically; I believe I saw an article with an example some months ago (actually it might have been in a restaurant, I'm not sure). Supplying the goods to the supermarket itself could potentially be done with self-driving vehicles, with only a few people at the supermarket to offload stuff. What did I miss? Cleaning duties? I'd say close to half of the workers could be laid off in a very short amount of time if we really pressed this.

Now, considering the amount of people that are currently employed in the service sector, and considering that many of the jobs could be automated tomorrow, how do you expect to easily retrain large amounts of people into new jobs? And even then, what do you expect them to do? Post in a forum for a living? Humans can adapt only so quickly. And not everyone is going to be able to start a new company; in fact, most of the jobs that could be easily replaced don't pay a lot to begin with, so we're talking about people that probably already live day to day with less than comfortable disposable income.

He did a nice investment like most of us, but he was lucky not to have lost them in scams or trading at loss.

Don't generalize the kids. If he is smart enough to invest in Bitcoin, then definitely he is smart enough to spend the money wisely. People who win lottery jackpots usually spend their money recklessly, as they feel that they got the money without any effort. However, in this case, the kid took extreme risk by lending money from his grandma.

Economies of scale. The economy is more efficient when there is a larger population living under consistent rules, so larger countries prosper. Places where there is a different set of laws for each village are mired down by too much red tape when trying to trade, and so they do not prosper. The larger, prosperous nations slowly overtake the poorer regions, either by force or by cultural assimilation: the people in poor countries do not want to stay poor, so they start doing things the way they see the richer countries do things. For example, in Europe they saw that the US was advancing more than they were, so they formed the EU to help standardize economies across borders. As this trend continues, there will be more standardization globally.


Perhaps that is your own fault? Turn off your computer and go meet your neighbors. Invite them over for a barbeque, see how you can help them, be their friend and you will be happier.

Wow, that is great news, and yeah, I think it's probably a bigger deal than Overstock. I'd never actually even heard of them until they started accepting Bitcoin, but Expedia is pretty huge. One of my goals is to be able to travel the world on Bitcoin so this is another step in the right direction.

You obviously don't live in a heavily unionized state or are simply not paying attention.

This is where I disagree with you. As long as robots are not enabled with Artificial intelligence, they won't be able to do the tasks which are done by store assistants. And artificial intelligence is never going to happen for real.  

Lindsey Graham is currently the most senior RINO senator, after many of his friends (including Richard Lugar and Olympia Snowe) and went down in the recent years. The inability to oust him from the GOP shows the sorry state of the party in South Carolina.