I remember once, back in the late '80s, doing some contract programming for an insurance company, as part of a team putting together a package for doctors to use to report claims. DOS was still king and the best CPU was a 486 so memory was limited. As we couldn't expect our customers to have huge amounts of RAM by those standards, or have their machines well optimized, there was a specific minimum amount of available RAM expected. In fact, we had one test machine with exactly that much memory and if the program you wrote wouldn't work on it, you had to find ways to make it fit, including overlays. I wonder how many of today's "software engineers" could manage to work with that kind of constraint. And, the language we used was C; not C++, although it was available, but good old K&R C.

If you think you deserve more pay, then ask for a raise. If you don't get one, but you still think you deserve more anyway, then go apply for another job, either within the same company or with another company.

My dad worked mostly in supermarkets, both on the floor and in management and he told me once that when somebody asks for a raise it's because they need/want more money and if you turn them down, they're still going to need/want that extra cash, so if you turn somebody down for a raise, start looking for their replacement because they're going to be looking for a new job.

Well, that's not true. Trivially, AI includes randomization, which is something beyond pattern matching.

Anyways, give us all an objective definition of what intelligence actually is, and what precludes machines from doing whatever that is, and let's go from there.

Somebody downmodded you for that, but I can't tell if you are in fact arguing they are self-aware, or arguing that cogito ero sum doesn't really prove anything so everything is baseless...

Billionaires should not be in the equation of who is elected and what laws are passed in a Representative Democracy.

And how do you propose to prevent them from having any influence while still maintaining a Representative Democracy? No matter how you dance around it, everybody is supposed to be represented, one way or another and if you don't let the billionaires have their say, it isn't representative, is it?

Because photosynthesis produces oxygen, and increased CO2 would lead to a higher oxygen production rate. It's pretty basic science that one learns in middle school.

I picked 25% arbitrarily, it could be higher or only marginally lower, and presumably it'd take a great deal of time for the entire planet's oxygen levels to stabilize to newer CO2 levels.

In a word: yes. (And no, I don't understand the mechanism here.)

The studies on both have been pretty conclusive. Masks have had zero measurable impact over baseline on viral infection rates in anecdotal studies, have been shown to significantly increase bacterial infections in the wearer, and they contribute to increased blood CO2 levels for the wearer. Rhetoric - yours or mine - aren't really factors here, it's merely what we've been able to prove scientifically.

"What makes you think there will be increased plant growth?"

Because it's literally what's happening throughout the world as we speak. Higher CO2 is leading to a regrowth of greenery, making deserts more habitable throughout North Africa.

That was literally the point I was making.

People breathe, and output CO2. There are more people in China, and thus, more CO2 production in aggregate (when you combine breathing + production).

What're you talking about?

I didn't get anything backwards, you misread and made an incorrect inference.

China has a lot more people. They also have a lower per-capita CO2 emittance but higher overall, because more people.

Because they have more people, they're also outputting (breathing out) more CO2. Thus how you get 4-5x total more. Because people breathe.

Something with: any one who believes in infinite growth in a finite world is a madman

I don't think the problem is with the Constitution. Any Constitution is just a piece of paper, unless people collectively honor it. You could say it makes the Executive too strong, but this has happened gradually as we allowed it, or asked for it, since Congress has become crippled with partisan politics. For example the Constitution gives the power to set tariffs to Congress, not the President. Yet look where we are now.

What do you consider to be weird ingredients? I ask because there are many herbs, spices, condiments and so on that are kitchen staples in one part of the world, exotic rarities in another. As a quick example, Grains of Paradise are a standard in my kitchen, but unless you live in Africa, you've probably never encountered them. And, I remember once reading an article where the writer was complaining that he'd had to hunt down peppercorns to make a marinade.

I read it as All Pies.

The real problem is we can't return to being a key chip manufacturing nation overnight. You have to fall down to learn how to walk.