There's nothing wrong with spying.

Good lord.

Spying on your political opponents in a fishing-expedition to find evidence of criminal activity, because there was no probable cause to justify the spying in the first place, is anti-Trumpism manifest. Trump and his ilk are such obvious criminals that we must corruptly abuse the justice system in order to find the crimes, which in the end we couldn’t. All the usual corrupt rogues are of course present in this ever-growing scandal.

Jan. 6 probe potentially investigated over 150 Republicans, documents show

https://www.axios.com/2025/10/29/trump-january-6-republican-senators-fbi-arctic-frost

No it's not. The example I provided had dissimilar methods for acheiving the same result. The submarine example has dissimilar methods for acheiving dissimilar results.

The example you provided had two water pumps, but I was speaking about an organism versus a machine.

The question is whether Z can result from method X or Y. Your argument is that it cannot because Z will necessarily be different if from X as opposed to Y. That doesn't follow. The same thing can arise from different processes.

The question was whether machines can act like humans, can do things humans can do, like thinking, typing, being conscious. My argument is that they cannot because they are different things, have different structures, and so act differently.

Following your logic, suppose text on a screen results from X or Y, a machine and a human. We generate text on a screen by typing. Machines using AI generate text on a screen by using algorithms on user prompts, and performing a vast array of mechanical actions that results in legible text on a screen. Is the machine typing?

I don't see how you arrive at the second sentence from the first.

The things involved and the movements they make are different. It’s like saying submarines swim.

My take is skeptical, according to your definition.

For the simple reason that machines are not biological, they do not have similar structures, components, parts, or what have you, to any organism, let alone humans. If they do not have similar structures, they do not act in similar ways to humans. If they do not act in similar ways, they should not be described in anthropomorphic terms. In that way, it cannot be said there is knowledge, consciousness, learning, thinking, or any human-like acts involved in anything these machines are doing.

In my opinion the field requires new terms to describe the activity of AI; or if these terms are already available and established, they should be used instead.

One clear one is the US Constitution if you ask me.

I don’t think a document suffices, personally, especially one that allows slavery.

Both assume mankind is collectively improvable, and that the political means are the only way to achieve it. But the fact that 6000 or so years of both trial-and-error and pure reason have been applied to every conceivable form of “political and moral order”, yet have produced very few noticeable results, it ought to have informed all parties a little better.

It is a good thing that people cite another’s writing whenever they are using it to pad their own, especially when it comes to AI, because it serves as an indication that I needn’t read any further. One of the pleasures of viewing art or reading writing is the knowledge that someone put some effort into it.

If there be a rule it ought to be that sort of indication.

According to who? And certainly, it can at least be imagined as such. One can say many things about the Neoplatonists, or say the Sufi poets, but that they lacked imagination is not one of them.

According to me. My apologies, but when I was referring to the “communitarian” I was referring to an advocate of the modern philosophical movement. I was assuming you were one of them given your writing as of late.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/communitarianism/

In general, when there is an appeal to ancient framings or norms, the idea is that they are better, not that they are merely old (although to be sure, some folks do tend towards tradition for tradition sake, just as some see innovation as an end in itself).

I couldn’t see how such a framing could be better. There doesn’t appear to be much of a good life for the individual wherever Aristotelian traditions were particularly popular. In any case, communitarians often commit the fallacy of selecting a philosopher and assigning his opinions as the spirit of the age, as if everyone today has read Rawls and were all good liberals now. I’ll try not to make the same mistake.

That is, it is precisely the epistemic presuppositions that absolutize the individual in solipsistic bubbles that make it impossible for the Good to be recognized as diffusive (because the "desirable" just becomes "whatever is currently desired by an individual). It becomes impossible to know the Good (particularly in a naturalist frame where teleology is stripped out) and so what we really have is emotivism established by axiomatic presupposition, with the "Good" now demoted to a sort of procedural ideal for the allocation of an irreducible multiplicity of goods sought by individuals. But this isn't the result of logical necessity or any empirical finding, but simply flows from axiomatic epistemic assumptions.

That’s the thing, though. The Good is not diffusive. Until the communitarian comes to terms with the fact of our separateness, of our individuation, the communitarian Good can never be imagined in any other sense as individual, selfish desire. He wants conformity to certain ancient ideals, to return us to ancient ways of life, and so on.

There are two aspects to philosophy: those who philosophize and those who talk about or otherwise repeat those who philosophize. AI falls into the later camp. All it can do is repeat the claims of philosophers in somewhat legible text (like many here). But it is unable to philosophize.

AI is a glorified search engine and its threat is overblown.

It’s so glaringly untrue that one can only wonder why one is really saying it. The phrase serves as a piece of doublespeak, not necessarily a statement of fact. So the purposes are probably myriad: to “go along” with the act, to train the one who chants it, to signal allegiance to the cause, or to bully those who deviate.

Another potential terrorist foiled by authorities in Washington. One might assume his politics (and his mental capacity) by noting the potential targets.

A man had more than 200 handmade destructive devices — including bottle rockets and molotov cocktails — in a tent on the steps of a D.C. cathedral where Supreme Court justices were expected to attend Mass on Sunday, court records show. During his arrest, Louis Geri threatened to ignite explosives and handed authorities pages of his notebook that, according to court records, expressed animosity toward the Catholic Church, Supreme Court justices, members of the Jewish faith and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/10/06/bomb-threat-catholic-church-supreme-court/

These sorts of acts, along with the ongoing insurrections occurring throughout the country, hint at a country on the verge of civil war.

If all available options violate rights, can morality demand a choice at all?

Whatever the choice would be, should it violate rights, it would be an immoral choice.

Does the reframed problem prove that utilitarianism is the only viable framework when non-interference is impossible?

It only proves that one has to remove other options for utilitarianism to be a viable moral framework.

Can an individualist ethic survive scenarios where all choices involve direct harm?

Yes. The future is unknown. One cannot know if his choices result in direct harm until that time comes. One can only do his best to avoid inflicting that harm or protect others from it. In your scenario, his only option is to try to stop the train or remove the people from the track.

Is the moral guilt of killing one equal to the moral guilt of killing three, or are outcomes morally significant regardless of principles?

I assume killing more people equals more guilt, but then again I’ve never killed anyone.

Does the reframed trolley problem show that philosophy must move beyond rigid doctrines and toward pluralistic ethics?

Next time we might try removing the utilitarian options and asking the same question.

I think Japan is going the robot route to handle elderly care. Apparently they’ve been working towards a technological solution for decades. According to the article below, such a solution might only end up creating more work. It will be interesting to see if this option prevails.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/09/1065135/japan-automating-eldercare-robots/amp/

The labor shortage means a decrease in tax revenue for the state, which in turn means less state “services” for those who were promised retirement, healthcare, and so on, in their twilight years.

One might logically think that with a decreasing population, the size of the state would decrease in tandem, as it has less people to account for overall. Government for the people and all that. But the state refuses to decrease. So it will move to replace the waning population with new populations. Therefor immigration and campaigns to increase the birthrate is their only choice, and I suspect this is the way they will hitherto move.

That’s right, it’s Comey’s word versus McCabe’s, and it’s frightening that this stupid dynamic was once present at the highest levels of law enforcement management. These were supposed to be the experienced adults in the room, and they all turned out to be bickering hacks. Now Comey’s lawyers are going to have to convince a jury that McCabe is a liar and Comey isn’t. That’s hilarious.

On the other hand, your inexperienced prosecutor convinced a grand jury that there was enough to indict.

Andrew McCabe testified to the inspector general that Comey authorized leaks. Comey in 2020 testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that he did not. One of them lied and obstructed justice. Given that during a hearing in 2018 Comey said he “can’t remember,” “can’t recall” and “doesn’t know” 245 times I’m leaning towards him being the liar. They threw people in jail for far less.

Fair enough, I’ll take your word for it. But there is another way to frame it, and it doesn’t involve attributing to scratches on paper and articulated sounds from the mouth special powers and unseen forces. Perhaps your disposition is to blame for your purchases, and not the words.

I’m with you. The sheer amount of causal theories is mind-boggling.

But I’ve come to prefer a version of the so-called Transference theory of causation, where causation ought to be reduced to the transference of physical conserved quantities, like “momentum” or “energy”, from one object to another. Though I’m not sure I believe in “physical conserved quantities”, it is at least intuitive and empirical to say that one object hitting another caused the other to move.

The statute of limitations to indict disgraced FBI director James Comey for lying to congress expire next Tuesday. Knowing the two-tiered justice system, I doubt we'll see charges.

Justice Department weighing whether to charge former FBI Director James Comey, sources say

Why would we have advertising, prayer, speeches or Fox News if language was powerless?

Just curious, but how many products have you bought in ratio to how many advertisements you’ve seen? Using the power of your speech, perhaps you can convince those who say “nay” to hate speech legislation to believe otherwise. Both of these demonstrations ought to inform you on just how powerful speech really is, and that we’re not just thinking magically.

Does all this then mean you approve of the political correctness which societally, though not legally, mitigates hate speech as previously defined, this as the optimal mode of societal checks and balances?

Not at all. I disapprove. I’m just trying to argue that speaking speech that can be construed as hate speech is riskier than hearing it.

So if we take away all political correctness, what checks and balances remain to prevent speech that can easily lead to mass murders and genocides?

More often than not, hate speech incites violence on the one who speaks it. It’s why police defend the KKK and the American Nazi party to hold their rally’s and marches, in order to protect them from violence. That threat of violence is always there, I suppose, and acts as somewhat of a deterrent.

On the other hand, hate preachers, holocaust deniers, and racists of all types are viewed as cranks in American culture. Chomsky makes this point, that anyone can publish works of holocaust denial in the US and no one really pays them much notice. If you do that in Europe, where it is often illegal, their work gets all sorts of press.



If you’re ever in New York go watch the Black Hebrew Israelites hold their very public displays of street preaching. They speak hate speech pretty much daily, out in the open, with little to no effect on anyone. It’s almost comical to watch.

At any rate, the idea that free speech leads to genocide is ridiculous in my view. No government ever involved in genocide had any commitment to free speech. In fact, quite the opposite. Clearly the issue is state-sanctioned mass murder.

I believe the checks and balances is greater free speech.

You answer that, in light of your support for the Trump Administration's threats to ABC.

Personally, I do not think those in power should wield that power to limit free speech. I believe that is likely unconstitutional, but absolutely believe it is wrong.

There you have it. That’s a principle. I guess it’s a good thing Kimmel, the multimillionaire who celebrated other people being fired or censored, is still doing his show.

We just found out the other day from Google that the Biden admin pressured them to remove accounts for misinformation, many of whom were Trumpists like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon. Terrible isn’t it?

Enjoy Kimmel tonight.

https://nypost.com/2025/09/23/us-news/google-to-reinstate-youtube-accounts-banned-for-repeated-violations-of-covid-19-content/

But you can lie and say I turned off Electrical Grid B to an electrician, perhaps in theory even just walking by without being employed by the company, and an electrician goes to work on it and gets killed. That's illegal. Or, you can stand by a bridge you know is dilapidated and cover leaves over it and if a person asks if it's safe, you can say "Sure", and they are also killed. That's quasi-legal, simply because no one can prove you did anything. So, no, this idea that speech cannot lead to real human death, possibly mass causality has already been legally codified. That ship has sailed, mate. So, that realization hitting you (or anyone who was ignorant of such) aside. What are you truly hoping to proliferate?

Here’s a chance to prove your case. Let’s see you injure me with words.

The capacity of speech to injure, or the capacity of speech to lead to injury? How can speech injure?

You can damage someone’s ear if you yell too loudly. That’s about the only way to injure someone with speech.

As you know these sorts of censorial claims, used as they are to justify silencing others, are testable. Injury is measurable. We can simply ask them to injure us with words and examine the results. I would even offer myself as the victim and sign a waiver. At the very least it would be interesting to know which combination of sounds can lead to the worst injury. But you and I both know that no such tests are forthcoming and the claims are piffle.

You abhor government censorship.

The President and the chair of the FCC using their words to threaten their critics into not saying the things they're saying and/or to have them deplatformed under the pretence of legal responsibility is government censorship, even if not said face-to-face, officially and formally. It isn't just them casually speaking their mind. No reasonable person accepts "will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" as plausible deniability. You're engaging in poor apologetics, plain and simple.

I abhor all censorship and I oppose ABC’s decision. I also respect their right to do whatever they want to Kimmel. He’s an employee. His waning popularity and the collapse of ratings probably made the decision much easier.

Watching everyone now twisting themselves into pretzels to blame Trump, after a decade of trying to silence him and his movement, is just added enjoyment on my part.

Now that you abhor censorship I hope you carry your new-found principle further and oppose the censorship prevalent in your own country, union, and continent. Sadly, I doubt that’s something I’ll ever read.

Yes, because that's what he was doing. Whereas Carr and Trump are using transparently tenuous and bullshit justifications to attack their critics. Everyone other than absurd apologists like you can see it for what it is.

Uh oh, “attacking their critics”. Scary stuff.

I don't know what you believe, but what you said in earlier posts was a defence of Carr's and Trump's words, pretending that they weren't doing the very thing that you claim to abhor.

I don’t abhor speaking. In fact I want to know exactly what those in power are thinking and what they believe, and I wish they’d speak more.

Let’s get this out of the way first—do you believe those in power should decide what you can and cannot say?

So the free speech absolutist makes an exception, when it entails retaliation by his side; a retaliation that's an order of magnitude worse because it entailed explicitly political speech, and threats to misuse the office of the FCC to inflict that punishment*, and threats of expensive lawsuits

If retaliation (in spades), is acceptable, then you should be fine if there were to be counter retaliation from the left. But obviously, you have no principles.

No, I’m pointing out that this is the world that people like Kimmel built. You want censorship you get censorship.

Your (apparently faux) commitment to free speech absolutism has left you incapable of understanding nuance and that the real world isn't black and white.

That I disagree with your claim that all speech regulation is bad isn't that I believe that all speech regulation is good.

Laws against defamation, conspiracy, and incitement to violence are both prudent and justified. The government and the President threatening to revoke the licenses of news organisations that are critical of them is bad.

It's ironic that your obsession to defend Trump even leads you to turn a blind eye to blatant, unjustified, government censorship, trying to whitewash it away as being something other than what it is. Even Ted Cruz and other Republicans are calling it out. This isn't just some liberal, anti-Trump hysteria.

Right, but when the EU commission directly threatens Elon Musk with fines it’s just “Reminding someone of their legal obligations to moderate their platform”. You appealed to law so using that logic a president and fcc chairman reminding those companies of their legal obligations to moderate their platforms is just that. I was just pointing that out. I believe all such laws are stupid, and all such regulating bodies should be abolished. I have never wavered from this belief.

It's laughable if you think that something so insignificant, even if false, warrants revoking a news organisation's license. Compare that with basically the entirety of Fox News, which even has hosts suggesting that homeless people should be murdered. Silence from Trump, Carr, and the FCC.

I don’t believe that at all. I believe Kimmel, Kirk, Fox News and indeed anyone who speaks should govern their own words. But this isn’t the world you advocate for. It’s you who advocates for those in power to set the conditions for speech, and here you are having to deal with the consequences of those beliefs.

Network stations owned by companies like Nexstar and Sinclair Group also have an obligation to abide by FCC rules. Their licenses forbid them from spreading lies like Kimmel did and must consider the public interest. And it is in their power to moderate their own content, which is exactly what they chose to do.

Hopefully you’re aware Trump doesn’t have the power to fire Kimmel or anyone else on television, nor does the FCC. Neither ABC nor Disney are under their authority. If he does seize that sort of power I’ll start to worry.

For someone so defensive of government censorship and speech regulation, though, you’re suddenly so adamant about free speech.

When an EU commissioner did the same to Elon Musk, threatening him with penalty under the digital services act, is this the same sort of thing? He wasn’t just saying this to some YouTuber I’ve never heard of, but directly.

Subtext. Yet there were no conversations between either of the parties you mention. I guess this subtext just floats in the air, moving people around.

Perhaps it is the case that Newstar and Sinclair group didn’t want to show the episode because they didn’t like it, just as they said. Are you just going to dismiss this as lies?

I didn't mention Kimmel. I was alluding to this:

Oh, that’s right, Trump talking is government pressure in some circles. Forgive me.

You might appreciate this.

Democracy is at threat when a television show gets cancelled, but when a guy holding a microphone gets publicly assassinated we should refuse to show empathy. Your comments over the past week are a the perfect instantiation of Western political hysteria.

ABC and Disney ended Kimmel because their local affiliates refused to air his inflammatory episode.

There’s a difference between “cancel culture”, i.e boycotts, and government pressure to fire critics.

Nexstar media group said they made the decision to stop showing Kimmel unilaterally, without discussion with the government. They had the betterment of their audience in mind. I’m afraid they also have the free speech right to broadcast whatever they wish.

Only a totalitarian would expect to be able to speak without any consequences.

Why do you say that? Speaking without consequences is precisely what free speech is.

I remember. Also, so-called “election denial” was verboten. Anti-Trump pressure campaigns even got the president removed from the largest social media platforms, along with vast swaths of his supporters. That’s why I don’t care too much about the victims here, and their cries ring rather hollow. This is what you get.

Hate speech is a censorship term of art like blasphemy, heresy, or sedition, and functions much the same. It’s a kind of sacrilege speech a ruling class and orthodoxy does not want people to hear because they fear the deleterious effects to their order.