>You got me...I'm married. I'm not short or ugly...but never the tallest or best looking in any room.

Ok, so that means you are probably pretty reasonable looking, and reasonably tall. All you need to be is top 20%, which it seems you are, or pretty close. This means that what most men are complaining about here isn't going to apply to you, you would have a relatively easy time dating in the current environment in the USA.

>I met my wife online in the early days of those apps, but seeing my single male friends, the ones who took the process seriously had many choices of women (late 30s to early 50s)

The apps have changed a lot since then. In the past (OK Cupid..etc), you could use your PC and search, filter on traits get a list of people to explore further. It was golden and easy to find and meet people. These days though, it is 'swipidy-swipidy-swipidy-swipe-swipe-swipe' apps only, and you can usually only use a phone for most of these apps, not a PC with a real keyboard, so this is not very conducive to writing more than 'hi' or 'whatsup' as an opener to a few women. A phone is a terrible interface for searching and interacting with people on a serious basis. As well, the app companies have gotten better at understanding psychology, and they want you addicted to that swiping, and not to find anyone suitable (which means you would use the app less, and see less ads which makes you less valuable to them). Nowadays, the apps are well designed to ensure that most people do not succeed, so they keep using the app.

As well, compared to the past before apps (especially the way they are now) because of those apps, the dating market is now extremely liquid compared to before. So this means the top 20% of guys get their inboxes utterly flooded with women without much effort, while the rest of the men don't get much of anything at all no matter what they do or how much effort they put in. Before, when there was less liquidity than now, guys who may not have been as physically attractive in their photo, could make some effort, and still attract reasonable women. That is not as true today because of apps the way they are now designed (very focused on one picture..etc).

>Men are definitely disadvantaged, but there are more women on the planet than men...
Well, yes, that is true, but it is because women live longer than men. Most of those 'extra' women are in their 80s so it doesn't really count.

>I am confident that if you have realistic expectations and have basic skills enough to be a good friend as well as reasonable effort into your appearance (like comb your hair, shower, and keep a healthy-ish weight), you'll find "a" woman with reasonable effort and probably find a good woman if you do things right.

You forgot the one major thing that men cannot control, namely height (short men, no matter how otherwise attractive they are or much of the above they do, have an extremely hard time dating in the USA, where the very minimum dating height for a white male to be even moderately successful is around 5'10 or 5'11). It is one of the most important criteria for women in dating besides extreme wealth. If you are a short white male and in the USA, there is not much you can really do except move to somewhere else where you are not one of the shortest men.

>and if you're white, you're at a huge advantage if you're open to other races....
Yes, this is absolutely true. White (especially American) men, even average men are very extremely highly desired everywhere in the world.. except in America. This is why 'passport bro' is a real thing and works. When I am in the USA, I get pretty much nothing on the apps. Though I am well educated, fun and a good time, I don't have 'tinder face', and I'm very short. So apps usually filter me out on the pic and the height filter, so don't work for me basically at all. When I am in Japan, Korea, Taiwan or Thailand though, my phone explodes with attractive women and they are easy to date.

So yes, apps are a very very big deal in what most men these days are complaining about, and dating is absolutely much much worse than it was in the past for most men as a result.

So it looks like they got rid of a bunch of DEI positions (good riddance), and the chief scientist, Katherine Calvin.

I wondered about that one though, so looked into her bio, thinking maybe she was a specialist in exploring planets, or rocketry, or astronomy. But no, she was none of those. She is a climate change specialist. That is fine, climate change is important (and real), but it is only (loosely at best) related to NASA's mission, which is to explore space, other heavenly bodies and astronomy. Climate change (on Earth) isn't really part of that mandate in any part of a central way.

Her role is much more suited in something like the EPA (environmental protection agency)..etc. That is where she needs to apply.

Hopefully the next chief scientist would be more specialized in what NASA actually does, and be an astronomer, an astronaut, or a rocketry or interplanetary sensing specialist, or something else of the sort..

I don't really see a problem with any of these staff changes / layoffs as explained in TFA

This is the "British Disease". Its root cause has nothing to do with immigration (though the additional influx of people with nowhere to put them may exacerbate it) and has been around for decades there.

Basically, British society and government has gotten so embroiled in bureaucracy that nothing can get done. To many "reviews", "consultations", "evaluations" and "impact assessments" and giving fair time and resources to those who oppose projects, that nothing can ever get built, nothing can get completed, especially buildings and infrastructure projects (train lines, highways..etc). Its all bogged down in management consultants, lawyers, "advocates" and pencil pushers.

The USA has it too to a bit of a lesser degree, but it is getting worse here too. (see High Speed Rail in California, getting approval to build new housing in cities where there are housing shortages..etc)

According to the TFA, rates of not getting hired went from 4% to 15% from the top MBA schools over the last few years.

One thing I have noticed when interviewing candidates recently, is that there are now grads from "good schools" who obviously during the interviewing process, are not even minimally qualified for any MBA job (or any other professional job) at all.

These candidates have been almost without exception minorities (except east Asian) or "immigrants" (illegal or otherwise, as places like California do have programs to get them into university and pay their tuition regardless of legal immigration status).

This was not the case at all decades ago when anyone (of any race or ethnicity) with a degree from a good school had at least minimum competence in interviews and would have made great new grad hires.

I know there has been a big boom of these type of admissions (DEI) of people otherwise not at all qualified to get in to good schools. Perhaps this explains some (or most) of the % increase?

Other hiring managers are maybe also seeing through the school degree name, and realizing that a % of the candidates they are interviewing despite "graduating" are absolutely not qualified due to alternative "measures of success" or DEI used by universities in recent years when selecting students that have nothing do to with competence or success in the business world?

Ok, and what about men who are interested in dancing, or computers or archery or whatever are there for dancing or computers or archery or whatever and not to be pestered by lunatics, psychos and other assorted 'professional victims'.

Oh, well that's just men, so that's not important I suppose. Always "believe the woman" and all that, I know..

Above poster is actually right, in the USA at least. Many social groups (dance groups, clubs..etc) now have 'codes of conduct' that have been written by people on the extreme left woke scale that everyone needs to agree to to be able to join the group/club.

These "codes of conduct" are written in such a way that (usually) women are not responsible for anything they do or problems they cause, often with an "always believe the woman" sort of clause in it. It is always the man's fault (or white person's fault..etc) no matter what happened and no matter what anyone did (or didn't) do.

Woke has gotta go.. the sooner the better.

Obvious solution then is give a discount or free-entrance to the men. In foreign countries actually, that is what they do and it works.

This is a job either for AI (well maybe not...hallucinations), or google translate, for a new language called "lawyer".

(anyone remember the unix command line program 'jive'? it converts English into jive (sort of 'ebonics' of the 1960s), it was funny as hell, but actually quite good!

Earlier this year, important clues to the physical basis for consciousness have been found (and none of these are in current AIs). Recent experiments have shown that consciousness has a quantum basis.

1)Experiment #1: Xenon quantum anesthetic effects
It has been found that Xenon gas acts as a very effective anesthetic. It has been found to work by disturbing quantum effects in microtubules. Interestingly, isotopes of Xenon (which are chemically identical but have different quantum effects) were not as effective as an anethetic. This indicates that anesthesia (Xenon at least) disrupts consciousness via quantum effects, not chemical effects as one would have normally expected. Start with this article, but there are many others now, especially this year from reputable journals.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticle...

2)Experiment #2
Microtubules in the brain have been shown to have quantum effects. This was very unexpected as quantum entanglement has only been shown in very small molecules, whereas microtubules are very large. Not only that, but the larger the microtubule, the larger the quantum effects, which is not what had been found with other molocules. Roger Penrose (Physicist) and Stuart Hameroff (Neurologist) have been involved in a lot of this work (#1 above and #2).

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedaily.com%2Fr...

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Flegacy.cs.indiana.edu%2F...

In short, the proposal (now backed with experimental evidence) is that consciousness arises from quantum effects in neurons, in particular microtubules. Disrupting these quantum effects (with certain Xenon isotopes) also disrupts consciousness. At that point, the subject is as inanimate as a chair or a shirt, just an object with no senscience.

Given the physical mechanism of consciousness is now starting to be known, it should be possible to manufacture machines that do exhibit similar quantum effects in their processing units, which will make them 'conscious' just as we are, like in the film A.I.

At that point, we'll have to think about these things, but with the current A.I.s using classical computation on classical CPUs..no they are not conscious at all.

Why did 'consciousness' evolve this way? I am not sure, but I am guessing that the computational power of quantum computing in organisms is far more efficient than classical computing (think brain weight, energy requirements), so it evolved, and 'consciousness' is a side effect of it.

This was happening in northern California this past week to a family member.

You go to the poll, tell your name, you get to vote under that name. No ID check, no nothing.

And this person was only physically at that polling station because their 'mail in ballot' had been stolen from their mailbox along with all the neighbors the week before.

So yes, ID checks are needed, and some places like California are not doing it.

Solution to this is to "passport bro". It is well known at this point that most of the women in the US are going for only the top 20% of men (appearance, wealth, height). There is lots of research now on this topic (google "hypergamy"), leaving women sharing their man with other women, while the other men are getting mostly nothing. Mostly you can blame "apps" for this, as it makes the dating market extremely liquid compared to the past days pre-"app". It is also why women in the US generally rate around 80% of men in the country as "below average" (yes really!)

However.. Being employed in a good job, reasonable character is more than enough to get you nice very women who will be faithful and want to date you / marry you from pretty much anywhere else in the world (i.e. Eastern Europe, Thailand, Japan, Philippines, south America..etc..). If you have a job that can be done remotely, or can take time off to meet them, this is the way to go. American men, even 'average ones' are very extremely highly valued everywhere in the world.. except in America.

I did this (I'm very short by US standards, and bald.. both things I cannot control so I had a lot of trouble dating in the USA). I went overseas and do not regret it one it, it really is a lot different once you leave the country and any man who is otherwise good quality and is having trouble dating in the USA should do the same. You won't regret it.

This has been done before (a few times actually). Its called a 'fusor', and you do it with high voltages working sort of like a CRT.

A great web page explaining the device that a particular kid made and got working is here:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffusor.net%2Fboard%2Fviewto...

>Doesn't really matter if its 'different really'. It's completely different, "legally".

Then this is cookey, it means there is something wrong with the law and the law needs to be changed. It makes no sense the way it is now if that is the case..

But don't humans do the exact same thing when they 'remember' what is in a video?

The way human brains learn and retain something and the way AI's do it is pretty much identical. Why distinguish one from the other? If it is not allowed for AIs, then shouldn't it be banned for humans too?
 

So did they actually 'keep' any copies of the videos, or just 'watch' them for training (i.e. the exact same way humans do when learning from something on youtube).

Because, if their AI is just 'watching' them the same way humans do, then it is not 'piracy', but just the same things normal people do (watching youtube to gain skills, learn about topics...etc.). How is it different really?