Chris Knowles, Rituals of the State Cult |492|

Alex

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Chris Knowles, Rituals of the State Cult |492|
by Alex Tsakiris | Mar 16 | Skepticism
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Chris Knowles examines the meaning behind our cultures rituals.
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Wow - that discussion started out extremely dense and hard to follow. I was grateful the at some point you (Alex) seemed to impose a little order on it all which let me extract some meaning from what Chris was saying. I am listening in stages, so I'll come back with more.

David
 
idk... it sure looks like a green screen vid to me:
 

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Ohhh I know what you mean Alex. It just doesn't look right. The microphone seems to be closer to the camera, when compared to the hand, which actually is closer to the camera, roughly speaking.

The thing is, I'm not too savvy with analysing images and video. I've been fooled enough times by things that look like trickery, when it was genuinely just an illusion of some kind, so to speak. I just can't say yay or nay on this one, unless someone else can break it down better for us.
 
I am now much further on with Chris' interview, and I must say Alex, I think Chris is right to be extremely cautious about the reality of quantum computing on a serious scale, and that GO program.

I mean, in the end they used someone with a deep knowledge of GO to design the new program - presumably using the parallelism of neural nets(NN's), which are nothing new. They are often simulated on an ordinary computer, but of course, the speed of the computers and the scope for parallelism has improved enormously.

I also agree with Chris in that there is intense marketing trying to make us believe that a lot of progress is being made.

This puts AI into a bit of perspective - it has gone through a series of booms and busts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_artificial_intelligence

I remember the 1980's boom, and it was amazing. All the technical journals were full of vague but glowing accounts of how powerful the AI was just about to be, and how the Japanese were way ahead of us..... Nothing really came of it. I'd say that the simulation of neural nets has shown more promise, but it is so hard to get the perspective right. Back then, the Japanese were the scare country, now it is the Chinese.

The 1980's taught me that subjects can be puffed out and appear solid for a while, but then that collapses. I would say driverless cars are already leading in that direction.

As for Doug Matzke - I pointed out that when you GOOGLE him, all you find are references to his own organisation.

As regards Quantum Computing, my guess it will go so far and then stop. As you add extra q-bits to the system, keeping the system free from disturbance from the environment gets exponentially more difficult.

One reason that so much work has been done on the subject, is that Peter Shor invented an algorithm that could run on such a computer and factor a product of two large primes much faster than a conventional computer. Since a lot of encryption is based on the high cost of factoring such large numbers, the prospect of encryption becoming hackable has concentrated a lot of minds.

David
 

Actually, I might change my mind on this one based on further analysis by Ian Miles Cheong. It could just be the camera angles. It still looks wierd to me though. Check out the threads above to see what I mean.

I don't get it.

Biden is a creepy old bastard and he always makes that weird two hand gesture.Always. Watch any public appearance of his. It looks like he subconsciously wants to strangle someone. Nothing new. He does it every time he talks.

There's nothing in the clip to suggest a hologram. Sheesh
 
Returning to the concept of quantum computation, if you imagine any physical process can be measured with arbitrarily high accuracy, it is possible to compute in parallel. Think back to analog computers that had transistor circuits that could add or multiply voltages representing numbers. Imagine what would be possible if you could perform this process to arbitrary precision. Here is a very simple example:

a=1000020000700009
a*3
3000060002100027

You have performed four multiplications in one operation - 3*1, 3*2, 3*7, and 3*9!

BTW, Python can do operations on integers of arbitrary length, so you can experiment with this using an interactive python interpreter.

The problem is, of course, that noise and accuracy overwhelm an analog computation at some point, and the accuracy is only ever finite.

I have a sneaky suspicion that QC is another example of the fallacy of assuming you can do experiments with arbitrarily high accuracy and low noise.

I am not claiming anything more than a suspicion here, but part of the problem with modern science, is that research gets done because it looks superficially promising - it never has to deliver - even if those doing it realise that it is ultimately not feasible (think of carbon capture).

David
 
Like Alex, I was also there for the fight between the "New Atheists" and "Woke".

It was an entertaining thing to behold. Chris is correct. The Woke invasion did destroy the New Atheist / Skeptic sub-culture. Today only the most autistic incels living in fantasy land still do the Skeptic thing.

I also agree with Chris about Achayra S. I used to correspond back-and-forth with her via e-mail. She had a weird feminist, anti-religion agenda. It corrupted her scholarship.

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I definitely think that Christopher nails it comparing Corona to a cult.
It has all signs of a cult with all its symbols.
Problem with cults also is that it is hard to get people out of it.
They bought all the lies and will not acknowledge that they went the wrong way.

I was thinking already along those lines and found the following. Just imagine Corona as a cult:

https://culteducation.com/warningsigns.html
By Rick Ross, Expert Consultant and Intervention Specialist Ten warning signs of a potentially unsafe group/leader.
1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.
2. No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.
3. No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement.
4. Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.
5. There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.
6. Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.
7. There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader.
8. Followers feel they can never be "good enough".
9. The group/leader is always right.
10. The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.
Ten warning signs regarding people involved in/with a potentially unsafe group/leader.
1. Extreme obsessiveness regarding the group/leader resulting in the exclusion of almost every practical consideration.
2. Individual identity, the group, the leader and/or God as distinct and separate categories of existence become increasingly blurred. Instead, in the follower's mind these identities become substantially and increasingly fused--as that person's involvement with the group/leader continues and deepens.
3. Whenever the group/leader is criticized or questioned it is characterized as "persecution".
4. Uncharacteristically stilted and seemingly programmed conversation and mannerisms, cloning of the group/leader in personal behavior.
5. Dependency upon the group/leader for problem solving, solutions, and definitions without meaningful reflective thought. A seeming inability to think independently or analyze situations without group/leader involvement.
6. Hyperactivity centered on the group/leader agenda, which seems to supercede any personal goals or individual interests.
7. A dramatic loss of spontaneity and sense of humor.
8. Increasing isolation from family and old friends unless they demonstrate an interest in the group/ leader.
9. Anything the group/leader does can be justified no matter how harsh or harmful.
10. Former followers are at best-considered negative or worse evil and under bad influences. They can not be trusted and personal contact is avoided.
 
I definitely think that Christopher nails it comparing Corona to a cult.

I also enjoyed that part.

His analysis of the Face Mask as a form of Cult Uniform was spot-on.

Mask obedience is a form of Virtue Signalling. "I'm a good person because I care more about Society than you do". The mask destroys individual identity, and proudly waves the flag of allegiance to a political ideology.
 
The video is definitely weird. I work in vfx and I would have to say that what is being seen is a matter of forced perspective. The reason I'd say this is because in order to have his hand pass in front of the microphones (if it wasn't) would require someone to manually rotoscope his hands as a foreground element. Either that or Biden would have to be a completely separate element to the environment and composited in. In other words it would take time and effort to create the error, which makes no sense at all.
 
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Can anyone pls tell me what a green screen vid is? Many thanks.
I think it is where an actor does is filmed in front of a green screen, then the desired background is added later. The colour green is chosen because the actor himself will not have any green on him, so the computer doing the merging 'knows' to always replace green with the background scene.

This seems an amazing step to take with the POTUS, it implies that they can't trust him to walk down a path and speak one sentence.
Doesn't it also imply that the reporters holding the microphones are in on the trick?

David
 
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I think it is where an actor does is filmed in front of a green screen, then the desired background is added later. The colour green is chosen because the actor himself will not have any green on him, so the computer doing the merging 'knows' to always replace green with the background scene.

This seems an amazing step to take with the POTUS, it implies that they can't trust him to walk down a path and speak one sentence.
Doesn't it also imply that the reporters holding the microphones are in on the trick?

David
Oh my, TY David. I wondered if it was due to his dementia. In which case everyone with cards in the game is in on it. But how do they manage his full speeches--can he just read the prompter?? How did he manage the debates? Is his dementia worse, or does he have good days and bad days?
 
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