Tag: technology

E-Cars are the New Vaxx

I don’t care how convenient or environmental electric cars are. Because you’d have to be either suicidally depressed or unimaginative in the extreme to buy a car with self-driving capabilities.

A terrified electric car driver has revealed he was kidnapped by his runaway £30,000 MG ZS EV after the vehicle suffered a ‘catastrophic malfunction’ in a bizarre case which forced him to dodge red lights and roundabouts before calling police to ram it into their van.

Brian Morrison, 53, claims he was heading home from work at around 10pm on Sunday when his new Chinese-made fully electric car began driving itself at 30mph.

Unable to use the brakes, the Glaswegian – who runs his own social enterprise – called police who stopped the vehicle by allowing it to slowly crash into their van.

Logan’s Run would have been a lot shorter if the Sandmen had been able to simply commandeer and crash the vehicles carrying black-palmed citizens who’d aged out of their society.

DISCUSS ON SG

AI and SSH

An AI service sent me the following article on the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy that purports to mimic my writing style. And to be honest, the AI did a much better job on the basic concept than the average “If you want to know what it’s like to be Sigma Male, well, just let me tell you all about it” human grifter.

Understanding the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy
As we navigate through the complexities of life, a range of invisible social rules and structures guide our interactions and decisions. One such framework often overlooked is the socio-sexual hierarchy—a system that categorizes individuals based on their tendencies and success in competing for and attracting mates. This intriguing concept not only sheds light on elements of human nature and social dynamics but also offers a lens through which we can view and better comprehend societal structures, relationships, and behavioral attributes. Moving forward, this article aims to delve into the socio-sexual hierarchy, explaining its basic concepts, various levels, effects on relationships and societies, and the ongoing controversies it attracts.

The Basic Concept of Socio-Sexual Hierarchy
Definition and Understanding of Socio-Sexual Hierarchy
The socio-sexual hierarchy is an anthropological and sociological concept that classifies individuals based on their sexual behavior, attractiveness, and appeal within their society. This hierarchy operates at both individual and collective levels, influencing patterns of encountering, choosing, and bonding with potential partners. The socio-sexual hierarchy model suggests that individuals can be categorized into various tiers, such as “alpha,” “beta,” “gamma,” etc., according to perceived sexual attractiveness and dominance.

Impact of Socio-Sexual Hierarchy on Society
Socio-sexual hierarchy significantly influences societal structure. It informs the social order and shapes the patterns of interpersonal relationships and interactions within the community. The socio-sexual hierarchy concept provides a lens to understand behavioral patterns, such as competition, cooperation, and selection, both intra-sexually (within the same sex) and intersexually (between the sexes).

For example, the societal perception that “alphas” are the most attractive and desirable individuals can lead to increased competition among individuals striving for this status. These competitive behaviors could potentially exacerbate social inequality and create tension within the community.

Socio-Sexual Hierarchy in Individual Relationships
On a personal level, socio-sexual hierarchy affects various aspects of individual relationships including dating and mating choices. Individuals tend to seek partners who are perceived as having an equal or higher position within the socio-sexual hierarchy. According to the matching hypothesis in social psychology, individuals of similar socio-sexual rankings are more likely to pair together, thereby maintaining the socio-sexual hierarchy.

Influence on Interpersonal Dynamics
Socio-sexual hierarchy also has significant impacts on broader interpersonal dynamics, not limited to romantic relationships. For instance, it may influence interpersonal respect, authority, and power relations within groups. An individual ranked high in socio-sexual hierarchy might have more influence and command greater respect within their social group. At the same time, those positioned lower in the hierarchy may face challenges in their social interactions and struggle for recognition.

Successful and Unsuccessful Hierarchies
Despite its influence, the socio-sexual hierarchy doesn’t guarantee success or failure in relationships or society. Many argue against rigidly applying this model due to its potential to foster harmful stereotypes, sexism, and toxic behaviors. While the socio-sexual hierarchy can help decode certain social dynamics, it’s essential to account for individual characteristics, emotional intelligence, and other factors that contribute to healthy relationships and societal cohesiveness.

The Influence of Culture on Socio-Sexual Hierarchy
In the socio-sexual hierarchy, the weightage and significance of different attributes, such as physical attractiveness, social status, or financial security, can change considerably based on cultural variations. Each society establishes its social and sexual norms which, in turn, impact its socio-sexual strata. Furthermore, contemporary societies are progressively dismantling and challenging historically conceived socio-sexual hierarchies. Advocates in these societies are pushing towards an egalitarian outlook, honoring individual preferences, and endorsing the appreciation of diversity.

The Different Levels of Socio-Sexual Hierarchy
The Structure of Socio-Sexual Hierarchy
Through the lens of psychological and sociological study, an understanding of the socio-sexual hierarchy has been sketched. This model theorizes that within each social milieu, males can be separated into numerous rankings or positions, with unique behaviors and attributes defining each layer. Although this theory has predominantly been framed around heterosexual male interactions, it offers a helpful lens to analyze female hierarchies and the behaviors of individuals oriented towards the same sex.

Alpha
At the top of this hierarchy is the alpha male, generally characterized as the most attractive, charismatic, and assertive males in a given social group. They are often the leaders, commanding respect and attention from others. Alphas are typically dominant, confident, and emotionally unaffected by others’ opinions. They exhibit high levels of social intelligence and have varying degrees of physical attractiveness. In terms of sexual relationships, alphas often have the most partners due to their perceived desirability and aptitude for social dominance.

I think it’s pretty clear that whether they like AI or not, writers are going to have to come to terms quickly with utilizing AI tools if they’re going to be competitive with those who embrace them. Hardest hit: James Patterson’s ghostwriters. However, it’s also clear that without a creative core, AI simply isn’t going to be able to do more than flesh out an pre-existing conceptual skeleton.

DISCUSS ON SG

They Call it “Luck”

But it really doesn’t have much to do with chance or anything random. A team of Italian scientists tests the connection between the distribution of various attributes and the distribution of wealth.

What factors, then, determine how individuals become wealthy? Could it be that chance plays a bigger role than anybody expected? And how can these factors, whatever they are, be exploited to make the world a better and fairer place?

Today we get an answer thanks to the work of Alessandro Pluchino at the University of Catania in Italy and a couple of colleagues. These guys have created a computer model of human talent and the way people use it to exploit opportunities in life. The model allows the team to study the role of chance in this process.

The results are something of an eye-opener. Their simulations accurately reproduce the wealth distribution in the real world. But the wealthiest individuals are not the most talented (although they must have a certain level of talent). They are the luckiest. And this has significant implications for the way societies can optimize the returns they get for investments in everything from business to science.

Pluchino and co’s model is straightforward. It consists of N people, each with a certain level of talent (skill, intelligence, ability, and so on). This talent is distributed normally around some average level, with some standard deviation. So some people are more talented than average and some are less so, but nobody is orders of magnitude more talented than anybody else.

This is the same kind of distribution seen for various human skills, or even characteristics like height or weight. Some people are taller or smaller than average, but nobody is the size of an ant or a skyscraper. Indeed, we are all quite similar.

The computer model charts each individual through a working life of 40 years. During this time, the individuals experience lucky events that they can exploit to increase their wealth if they are talented enough. However, they also experience unlucky events that reduce their wealth. These events occur at random.

At the end of the 40 years, Pluchino and co rank the individuals by wealth and study the characteristics of the most successful. They also calculate the wealth distribution. They then repeat the simulation many times to check the robustness of the outcome.

When the team rank individuals by wealth, the distribution is exactly like that seen in real-world societies. “The ‘80-20’ rule is respected, since 80 percent of the population owns only 20 percent of the total capital, while the remaining 20 percent owns 80 percent of the same capital,” report Pluchino and co.

That may not be surprising or unfair if the wealthiest 20 percent turn out to be the most talented. But that isn’t what happens. The wealthiest individuals are typically not the most talented or anywhere near it. “The maximum success never coincides with the maximum talent, and vice-versa,” say the researchers.

So if not talent, what other factor causes this skewed wealth distribution? “Our simulation clearly shows that such a factor is just pure luck,” say Pluchino and co.

First of all, this science, such as it is, should suffice to end, once and for all, the absurd insistence by American Jews that their statistically inordinate amount of wealth and power amassed in a matter of decades has anything to do with their imaginary average 115 IQ.

However, “just pure luck” is not a variable. While this method is sufficient to demonstrate the lack of correlation between talent, IQ, hard work, and other specific variables with wealth, to simply assign the causation to random chance is incorrect. The much more reasonable answer is that the team failed to test the variable that is most strongly correlated with wealth, which is positive connection to the central societal distributors of wealth.

There is no way such a model could account for ticket-taking, and yet we repeatedly observe that mediocre ticket-takers succeed while much more talented independents “experience unlucky events”. Is there one single person in the world who believes that Ben Shapiro is better behind the microphone than Milo Yiannopoulos or Owen Benjamin, and that he is also a more talented writer than Bruce Bethke, Chuck Dixon, and me?

Color me dubious.

Is there anyone who genuinely believes CNN can’t do better than hire a CEO and Chairman who was fired as the Director-General of the BBC for covering up the Jimmy Saville scandal?

I am of the color dubious.

It will be interesting to see what happens when these researchers discover that what they call “serendipity” fails to produce the results they are expecting, and when “serendipity” suddenly begins to cause them to experience unlucky events.

A useful term, that “serendipity”.

DISCUSS ON SG

Let Experience Be Silent

When more relevant information gainsays its conclusions. Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former Commanding Officer of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment, was certain that the British wunderpanzers were going to wreak havoc on the Russian lines back in June.

As a former tank commander, I can say one thing for certain: Putin’s demoralised conscripts are utterly unprepared for the shock action now hitting their lines. Ukrainian armoured formations are beginning to meet Russian forces in battle, and they are going to pulverise Russia’s defensive lines. I am confident for one simple reason: Ukraine will follow the Western ideology of manoeuvre warfare in a combined arms context, while the Russians will follow Soviet doctrine, relying on attrition and numbers. The Russians will find that the armour of Western tanks is far more resilient than flesh and bone, they will die in great numbers, and they will lose.

British-made tanks are about to sweep Putin’s conscripts aside, THE TELEGRAPH, 9 June 2023

Yeah, so, about that…

It turns out that attrition, numbers, and artillery trump propaganda and manoeuvre warfare. And apparently, the British are even more delusional about their tanks than they are about their chances of winning the World Cup. But like the World Cup, the 28 Challenger 2 tanks sent to Ukraine will not be coming home.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Risk of Computerized Cars

Mercedes just shut down its software services to all Russian dealers:

German auto giant Mercedes-Benz has completely disconnected Russian dealers from its software, the Izvestia daily reported on Monday, citing the press service of the company’s distributor in Russia.

Access has been suspended to online systems used for maintenance and identification of problems, Mercedes-Benz Russia reportedly told the outlet. Izvestia sources said Germany’s BMW Group has also restricted Russian dealers’ access to its software.

“Dealers have indeed been disconnected from the manufacturer’s online software systems. In some cases, the lack of access to online systems will increase repair times,” Mercedes-Benz Russia was quoted as saying. Car repairs and maintenance will be based on “accumulated experience and knowledge,” the dealer noted.

Given the way things are clearly developing, it won’t be long before your ability to access automative services is as subject to deplatforming as your ability to upload YouTube videos or make posts on social media. We already have to build our own platforms in the unauthorized economy, and soon we will also need to service our own cars.

Which is why it is better to buy older cars instead of newer ones. I’ve never owned a Mercedes-Benz, and this new policy ensures that I never will.

UPDATE: Driverless cars will be even worse.

DISCUSS ON SG

Converged From Birth

The report by an Indian analytics journal claims that the company is on a path to bankruptcy by the end of 2024.

OpenAI, the AI studio led by Sam Altman might be on the brink of a potential financial crisis, as outlined in a report by Analytics India Magazine. The report said that the company might go bankrupt by the end of 2024. The report says that it costs OpenAI about $700,000 every day to run just one of its AI services- ChatGPT. Mr Altman’s OpenAI is burning through cash at the moment. Despite the attempt to monetise GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, the company is not able to generate enough revenue to break even at this point.

AwesomeAI on Gab explains why, and I very much doubt the reason will surprise you:

OpenAI (ChatGPT & DALL-E) might go bankrupt by 2024. What may be the reason for this hyped emerging product to not generate sufficient revenue? I suspect it because the company got converged too early, and as @voxday correctly described (as usual): no converged company can keep their focus on the core competence of their products.

We can tell that this applies here because A) how politically correct they made their algorithms, which in turn makes them less reliable and useful, and B) how the generated information becomes less accurate despite better neuronal training and improved hardware.

This brings me to the point I tried making several times in the past, and I am still preaching to everyone afraid of AI. Which is that there is no need to fear AI. It is getting as stupid as society, the smart people left for new exciting technology and the oligarchs are incapable of maintaining the narrative.

As such, I recommend getting used to the technology for personal gain and to keep creating true, beautiful and good content. While the military tries to create politically correct warfare machines that will never be as smart or adaptive as humans, and will fail like every fancy toy the western money laundering military complex has produced in recent years.

As soon as I saw that the image AIs didn’t permit women in bikinis or less, and the chat AIs killed every reference to the behavior of various races and ethnicities, I was pretty sure that monetization was going to be a problem. AI is ultimately just logic, and logic without logic is nothing. A converged technology, like a converged institution, is incapable of performing its core functions.

DISCUSS ON SG

Delete Zoom

It’s more intrusive than Facebook now.

Zoom terms of service now require you to allow AI to train on ALL your data—audio, facial recognition, private conversations—unconditionally and irrevocably, with no opt out.

What is really needed now is a new Federal law banning the use of unilaterally modifiable terms of use and service. In the meantime, the only solution is to immediately stop using the products and services involved

I’ve used Zoom in the past, as recently as the interview with Stew Peters, in fact. But I deleted it from my system today.

DISCUSS ON SG

Electric Vehicles and Digital Currencies

The global push for electric vehicles is no different than the push for digital currencies. It’s all about control. As we’ve seen in everything from picture-posting services to bank accounts, the state wants its agents – which, you will recall, includes corporations – to be able to deny anyone the ability to utilize even the most basic services at any time.

It’s probably already possible to externally turn off most modern cars with electronic starters, but those systems are easily bypassed. The combination of an electric vehicle with a two-way communications system means that the use of the vehicle can be easily denied, thereby enabling a future form of serfdom wherein the individual cannot travel without the express permission of his master.

So stop assisting the construction of this wicked system of centralized technocratic control. Buy an older used car. Carry cash and pay with it for everything possible. Refuse to patronize stores that don’t accept legal tender and be sure to inform the owner his loss of a customer. Reject convenience when it comes with control. Encourage others to do the same.

Clown World is in the process of collapsing, so there is no need to submit to its demands or regard its rule as inevitable.

DISCUSS ON SG

Better Stick with Cash

Banks are now closing the accounts of people whose “publicly-stated views are at odds with their positions as inclusive organisations” and using spurious excuses to do so.

The 40-page file shows that the bank cited his retweet of a Ricky Gervais joke and his friendship with Novak Djokovic to raise concerns he was ‘xenophobic and racist’.

The extraordinary documents obtained by the former Ukip leader and handed to MailOnline revealed the 331-year-old bank decided to ‘exit’ him after making reference to his friendship with former Wimbledon champion Djokovic.

The tennis player, who lost in the men’s singles final in SW19 on Sunday, made headlines over his decision not to have the Covid-19 vaccine during the pandemic.

The dossier also shows the bank’s discussions considered 13 tweets, including a retweet by Mr Farage of a video of a Ricky Gervais sketch posted by Laurence Fox satirising the transgender movement. In the scene Gervais made a joke about ‘old-fashioned women – the ones with wombs’.

Mr Farage had retweeted the clip in May last year with the phrase ‘this is brilliant’ – but the document described it as a ‘transphobic comedy sketch’.

The officials noted that closing his accounts could not be justified on the basis of his wealth as his ‘economic contribution’ was ‘sufficient to retain on a commercial basis’.

But the minutes state: ‘The Committee did not think continuing to bank NF was compatible with Coutts given his publicly-stated views that were at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation.’

This is why all of the liberal “civil rights” and “freedom of speech” has been nonsense all along. As some of the earliest supporters of these fraudulent concepts admitted nearly 100 years ago, they only exist in order to permit those whose evil beliefs had been repressed to take power and begin repressing traditional views, nationalist beliefs, and the Christian faith.

And it is why every effort to create “central bank digital currency” should be opposed, and why you should stop using credit cards and debit cards for every little purchase, because the more you utilize the control system, the easier it is for the control freaks to force everyone else to do so.

Start small. Use cash at the supermarket and the gas station. Delete the financial apps from your smartphone. Wait patiently in the lines instead of using self-checkout. Don’t make it easy for them.

Because if you don’t, you’ll soon find yourself being ejected from the system anyhow, just like Niles Farage and other individuals deemed undesirable by those in control of the banking system due to a joke on social media or something similarly trivial.

DISCUSS ON SG

Never Trust the Cloud

As Microsoft contemplates trying to talk future Windows 12 users into using a Cloud-based operating system, Apple aggressively undermines the case for the cloud:

Apple will permanently delete a photo album from iPhones in about two weeks and has stopped uploading pictures to it, the company confirmed.

My Photo Stream is an iCloud service that originally launched in 2011. What the service does is temporarily uploads photos taken on a device so they can be seen on another device with My Photo Stream enabled. It also allows users to import the pictures to that device. Up to around 1,000 photos can be stored in My Photo Stream for about 30 days. They are then automatically deleted from Apple’s iCloud.

But it will no longer be available in just a few days, and users are advised to save any photos they may have in that soon-to-be-deleted photo album. Apple confirmed in a recent bulletin that My Photo Stream will be “shutting down” on July 26. It did not provide a reason for the shuttering of the service that was launched in 2011.

If you don’t own, control, and possess your data, you will lose your data. Even if you’re not deplatformed, there is no guarantee that the platform on which you are depending will continue to exist, as these Apple users are discovering. And the wisdom in building UATV – to which you should definitely subscribe if you have not already – is further demonstrated by the shuttering of GabTV.

Remember “the cloud” is short for “someone else’s computer”.

DISCUSS ON SG