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Finally after 2 years of Trump bashing Sam Harris has done a conversation with the (not quiet committed to actually being a...) Trump supporter Scott Adams. It's a pretty good debate actually, recommend you give it a listen, Scott Adams is a great mind (if a bit docile). Sam has disabled comments on his website so I added The Untruth About Donald Trump to Sam's Tweet thread. Please retweet, heart or share it if you're a Twitter user. Tweet threads can be a surprisingly effective way to get a message in front of a lot of eyeballs.

Jordan Peterson Richard Spencer Julian Assange Camille Paglia Martin Shkreli Ann Coulter (again) Larry Elder Sam H. Who do you wish Stefan would interview?

This philosopher, Sam Harris is convinced that general AI is the greatest threat that humanity faces. I disagree. Humanity needs to invent general AI to survive. Despite building the most compassionate and prosperous society the world has ever seen with technology barely indistinguishable from magic the governments of the world are on the verge of suicidal wars. In recent history governments around the world have killed +250,000,000 of their own citizens. It reveals a great irrational faith in government to consider general AI to be the principal threat facing our species. There is a good chance that the digital gods we build will be benign helpers of humanity, there is also a chance that they may snuff us out but there is a certainty that evil of the government multiplied by the irrationality, out group preference and impulsiveness of people will turn this planet into a radioactive wasteland. Technology is rapidly replacing our jobs, a disturbing trend that foreshadows great social upset and violence. I can only hope that general AI will first replace the jobs of utterly ineffective government bureaucrats and paper pushers who in their organized irresponsibility deprive the people of freedom. The waste, fraud and abuse of the government could be replaced by elegant algorithms that efficiently solve problems instead of perpetuating them. Sam hypothesizes that general AI will squash us like a human stepping on a bug that crosses his path, what’s not hypothetical is that even now the boot of government power stomps on the face of human liberty. Despite the having the accumulated knowledge of history, economics and philosophy freely available to us in our pockets everywhere we go, the electorate still vote based upon the most petty scandals, visceral emotions and base human biases. General AI could fairly restructure democracy to favor intelligent, philosophically robust policies and politicians and General AI could eventually completely replace the government, the way that democracy replaced aristocracy throughout the world. As a government AI would likely not be a central planner, AI would interpret all the data provided by the free market, and make decisions unbiased by emotion, ego, nepotism or political correctness. There’s a chance that the infinite intelligence that we can divine from 1’s and 0’s can wrest power away for good from the homicidal institution of government and that is worth taking a chance on!

Hi All, I happen to be a member of the Sam Harris forums and I recently received an email about a contest that Sam Harris is having in February regarding moral philosophy. He's asking fellow thinkers to send in a rebuttal to his Moral Landscape book/theory (however you want to perceive it). I've always been a fan of Sam Harris but I've never been satisfied with his well-being vs. suffering postulation as all my conscious brain can do is poke hole after hole in his arguments that ultimately come down to utilitarianism (in my opinion). So he's got this contest, here: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-moral-landscape-challenge1 The prize is $2,000 dollars to be published and $10,000 if you're actually able to change his mind. Frankly, I want Stef to take it to the hole here, but that doesn't mean that any one of us couldn't put forth the best arguments (1000 words or less) based on what's (starting to become) natural to us. This is fun, it's incentivized, and it's an opportunity to get Sam Harris thinking more about UPB. If you're interested, I'm glad I was able to show it to you. I hope everyone is doing great. Thanks and keep supporting FDR and each other. Justin