Squaredy

That is an intelligent article, making fair points. But as the author points out the knowledge collapse started many many years ago. AI may hasten it, but the threats he identifies have existed for thousands of years at least. Societies evolve, they grow and shrink, and even in my own little area I could easily point to loss of traditional skills and knowledge. There is probably not a solution, but luckily there are always people around who will develop niche interests and learn about their heritage and (some) past skills. But we can't preserve the past as if it is a crime to develop and evolve. The skills of coracle making, eel trapping, hunting and cooking small birds and amphibians, foraging for roots, turning hawthorn berries into nutritious food, and a million other traditions have all but disappeared from my area, but life goes on and new customs develop. I do not dismiss what the author is saying, and yes we can all guard against following each other like sheep. This should start with parents and schools encouraging kids to think independently, analytically and critically. If a school fails to embrace plurality of opinion and approach they are failing their pupils. If a school and parents help a child use their brain and think about the issues of the world and their community they are setting them up to use AI and other tools (like modern construction methods mentioned in the article) for their own and others' benefit. Critical thinking is the key; not ludditeism.

I am not sure I have the answer here. I think school life was better before smartphones. It is so sad seeing so many people walking around staring at their screens all the time, no doubt much of the time on social media. But where do you draw the line? It is not always bad. Having said that I think schools should take a strong line and this would make it easier for parents. But I fear the teachers love technology as it can do much of their work for them. My boys school uses an awful system called Sparx Maths which does all the lesson planning, sets all the homework, marks all the homework, shows pupils help videos for any work they are stuck on. The teacher barely needs to turn up. The kids hate it and in many cases it makes them hate maths. But it looks like it is the future. If I had my way all homework would be paper based. In fact pretty much all schoolwork would be paper based. Generally kids work out really fast how to use technology. It is the traditional skills they need help with.

Wow; as a sawmiller it is so sad to see such amazing logs turned into chip. I realise that you may not find a suitable buyer exactly when you need one, but there is a niche market for such logs. Not only sawmills like mine, but also some chainsaw carvers like nice big lumps of sequoia. i recently bought a lorry load of sequoia not quite as big as some of the ones on this thread, but I was only buying the second and third lengths. I paid £100 per ton delivered if I remember rightly.

So about the time that suddenly everyone had a computer in their pocket, rather than a communication device. I tend to agree, but you could say that IT was elite until the smartphone became afordable. Ie only those who could afford a PC or laptop and broadband at home were IT enabled. But of course the upside of this was that things were still available the old fashioned way. Banks were still a thing; the high street had a huge variety of shops, and you could phone ahead to see if they had what you need. Nowadays some things are just so easy to find - a quick google search, press a few buttons and within a day or two it arrives. On the other hand how frustrating is it when we are forced to do things via an app that doesn't work properly? And how sad that so much of life is just now about staring at a screen - social media is a whole rabbit hole of good and bad that we haven't even mentioned.

Agreed. It seems the educational establishment have no idea how to tell how much work is down to a student and how much is AI. Perhaps a solution to this might be for universities to actually return to exam based assessments!

Agriculture gave us leisure time. But also huge famines, huge wars, slavery, obesity, genocide etc. I am not sure many people would want to return to hunting and gathering however!

Good grief, the writer of that article has some serious hang ups! I guess he walks everywhere and uses a typewriter to send letters to his friends! Which to be fair there is nothing wrong with. And also to be fair he does make some valid points. But he lost me when he said AI is racist. And the example he gave was pathetic. I think we can all agree that AI has its risks, just the same as probably every technological advancement from planting seeds to grow your crops to machines replacing skilled workers also has risks and downsides. In fact you could reasonably argue that where it all started going wrong for humanity is when we learnt agriculture ten thousand years ago: life expectancy plummeted, we became stunted due to lack of variety in diet and almost every major catastrophe that has happened since would have been impossible before large scale farming. But put your hand up if you want to go back to a hand to mouth existence where you hope you can feed your family and keep them alive for one more day. Surely we need to learn to harness AI and use it for our ends. After all it can’t be uninvented!

The new estate by my house had raw sewage leaking out and running down the street on Friday. Also not in the news.

Interesting selection of sources of news. All enemies of Israel as I assume you know.

Hopefully you are aware that the Gaza health ministry is run by Hamas? And as for aid agencies and universities (some of whom have also looked into casualty numbers) I would be more interested in objective assessments. The entire educational establishment in the UK and US has a very definite partisan left leaning agenda. And I have no idea why, but it seems everyone on the left sympathies with Palestine and dislikes Israel. I would love to say I believe UNICEF or other bodies but I know the way left leaning organisations work. In fact from memory I believe that another offshoot of the UN - the UNRWA actually employs hundreds of Hamas operatives. Sadly the world is full of propoganda dressed up as information. Just look at the BBC!

Why would I give any credence to casualty figures from Hamas? Apart from the BBC the world accepts they are a terrorist organisation and have been shown to use videos from a decade earlier and even a different country claiming they are recent incidents in Gaza. And no there is no independent scrutiny of what is happening in Gaza. So they may have doubled the figures or multiplied them by a factor of ten or a hundred. Who knows? Israel and Hamas were/are at war. I have no doubt atrocities have taken place on both sides, but what exactly did Hamas expect when they carried out the largest mass murder of Jews for 80 years and said they would do it again and again until Israel is wiped out? I have sympathy of course for innocent people caught in the crossfire. But when you realise that Hamas actually routinely steal the aid (therefore starving their own people) and since the Trump ceasefire they have continued killing their own people you have to question who has the moral high ground.

I finally got a spare bit of time to watch this video. And it is genuinely interesting. The presenter makes some great points, and essentially is warning against the ease of absorbing mis-information, which is literally everywhere these days. And yet, he quotes Hamas propoganda repeatedly in the video and never seeks to fact-check this. He also for some reason made no mention of the prosecutions that have actually taken place in Amsterdam following the hooliganism. So yes, he gives a great example of how mis-information spreads. But even more frightening is how it can dress itself up as respectable, trustworthy, and a voice of reason in a crowd of propoganda. The presenter is doing exactly what he is accusing others of. Just for the record so far: 122 arrests, of which ten were Maccabi fans. 9 succesful prosecutions for violence so far - none of whom were Maccabi fans. As always the left manage to cuddle up to Hamas and other islamic terrorists. Do we need to list again the number of terrorist attacks on UK soil that are down to Muslims?

Yes, that will be one of the problems they will face.

Just a word of warning in case anyone has or is likely to have dealings with Axminster. The company have been losing money for a few years, and a few weeks ago they were split into two to walk away from their debts and give the company a fresh start. So the result is that almost all their existing creditors will get nothing, but they will be honouring existing orders. They have several hundred creditors, to the value of nearly £8 million so a lot of firms will be affected. My advice is that if you make a large purchase from Axminster use a credit card, as there is no guarantee they will continue to be solvent. Of course this is sound advice for any large purchase from any company, but as Axminster have just narrowly avoided oblivion and walked away from a lot of debt it is probably wise to be extra cautious. Incidentally I have no personal beef with Axminster, and I am glad the company has been saved, and hopefully they will once again go on to be a highly regarded company. I do have sympathy though for those firms let down.

I think the crucial thing you forgot to say is whether you are after freshly milled beech or if you need it dry. If it is the former I am sure a few arbtalkers could assist.

Do you mean the value of the timber removed? I have been a Timber buyer for many years and could help with that. If you mean value of the amenity, or cost of replacement or similar then that is not my field.

I read about this firstly in the Spectator. I then fact checked what they said by asking AI to check actual convictions for me. AI confirmed that although Maccabi fans had been provocative, the violence was against them.

I didn’t watch the video as I get my information from independent sources. I checked up on the court cases from Amsterdam and they tell a very different story.

I think you have sucked up a bit of propaganda there. If you look into it, all the prosecutions so far from the Amsterdam match are not Maccabi fans. I am not saying they were not guilty of any of the trouble, but for the most part they were the innocent party. This inversion of truth is endemic at present when it comes to Israel.

I suppose this could be a good case for having a cuppa instead! I say that in jest, but as @AHPP says, it is a nice idea to be able to pop in and catch up without breaking the bank, and I guess tea would be half the price, and no worries about driving afterwards! And I would say good for the pub too. Tea would have a way higher profit margin. We just all have to stop worrying about looking square and order a cuppa!

I agree totally. Having said that driverless taxis are arriving in London next year, and I say ‘Bring it on’. Results so far in USA show far higher levels of safety, and zero assaults by pervy taxi drivers!

Equally depraved and disgusting.

I recommend anyone who wants to see how nuts some people are these days, look up the Universal Declaration of AI rights, published by the Universal Foundation for AI rights. Woe betide anyone who thinks that they have the right to switch off their own computer!

No. Tell me more.

I for one am horrified to think that certain people in some areas will get let off serious crime just because of their race or religion.