I think that then we actually agree.

That is my current understanding as well, except that I would add that cigarettes are so expensive because of sin taxes, not because they’re inherently that expensive to produce. In NYC (admittedly a place with particularly high taxes on cigarettes) the total tax on a single pack is $7.86. Therefore I don’t have a lot of sympathy for arguments that the government ought to discourage smoking specifically because it costs poor people a lot of money. (With that said, public health arguments for discouraging the burning of tobacco are valid.) My guess is that a nicotine habit doesn’t have to be much more expensive than a caffeine habit.

The policy goals of the 0.01% are basically in lock step, why would they bid against each other?

But in fact both The Democrats and the Republicans raise money.

Yes, and so what? $5.5 billion was spent on the 2024 presidential election. That’s very little. There are individuals capable of spending more than that. So if spending more could actually affect the outcome in a significant way, why wasn’t much more spent? Surely the difference between Harris and Trump is worth more than just a few billion dollars to some person or group with that much money. My conclusion is that while some amount of money is necessary to run a campaign, even the relatively small amount being spent now is so far past the point of diminishing returns that spending more isn’t worth it even to billionaires who could easily do so and care a lot about the outcome.

I haven’t noticed this behavior coming from scientists particularly frequently - the ones I’ve talked to generally accept that consciousness is somehow the product of the human brain, the human brain is performing computation and obeys physical law, and therefore every aspect of the human brain, including the currently unknown mechanism that creates consciousness, can in principle be modeled arbitrarily accurately using a computer. They see this as fairly straightforward, but they have no desire to convince the public of it.

This does lead to some counterintuitive results. If you have a digital AI, does a stored copy of it have subjective experience despite the fact that its state is not changing over time? If not, does a series of stored copies representing, losslessly, a series of consecutive states of that AI? If not, does a computer currently in one of those states and awaiting an instruction to either compute the next state or load it from the series of stored copies? If not (or if the answer depends on whether it computes the state or loads it) then is the presence or absence of subjective experience determined by factors outside the simulation, e.g. something supernatural from the perspective of the AI? I don’t think such speculation is useful except as entertainment - we simply don’t know enough yet to even ask the right questions, let alone answer them.

This isn’t the Cthulhu universe. There isn’t some horrible truth ChatGPT can reveal to you which will literally drive you insane. Some people use ChatGPT a lot, some people have psychotic episodes, and there’s going to be enough overlap to write sensationalist stories even if there’s no causative relationship.

I suppose ChatGPT might be harmful to someone who is already delusional by (after pressure) expressing agreement, but I’m not sure about that because as far as I know, you can’t talk a person into or out of psychosis.

Letting some students leave a class during storytime if their parents request that will, uh, wipe the existence off the map of an entire other group?

I see where you’re coming from, and I also disapprove of beliefs and ideologies which demand ignorance. However, there’s no impartial principle which can determine who is ignorant and who isn’t - I have, for example, been called ignorant because I refuse to read the books that vaccine conspiracy theorists suggest to me. If their views became mainstream (and if I had children) I would want the option of withdrawing my children from a class teaching those views, even if technically the class would not be forcing them to believe that vaccines are harmful.

Ultimately I don’t want to wield any power against my ideological enemies which they would then be one election away from wielding against me.

I’m not sure what you mean - I’m advocating for more protection. My whole point is that everyone including people with unpopular or offensive beliefs should be protected, because it would be unconstitutional (and intolerant) to protect only those groups with inoffensive beliefs (e.g. dietary restrictions).

Unlike an AI, I don’t actually know how to make cupcakes.

I admit I don’t see people vaping as a major problem. The harm is not so severe that it overcomes my inclination to let people make their own choices. This is especially so when the harm is not intrinsic to the act but rather the result of contamination.

Yes, the first step to determining that AI has no capability for cognition is apparently to admit that neither you nor anyone else has any real understanding of what cognition* is or how it can possibly arise from purely mechanistic computation (either with carbon or with silicon).

Given the paramount importance of the human senses and emotion for consciousness to “happen”

Given? Given by what? Fiction in which robots can’t comprehend the human concept called “love”?

*Or “sentience” or whatever other term is used to describe the same concept.

That advertisement had no effect on me whatsoever.

Would you like a cupcake recipe?

They’re worse in one particular way, which isn’t the most significant way that cigarettes cause harm. They’re not worse overall. Vaping has been a major public-health success story, and it’s odd to see people trying to discourage it with misleading headlines. The perfect is the enemy of the good here.

This decision is one I actually agree with. While I have no objection to these books and I think that normalizing non-heterosexual relationships is good, the fact of the matter is that doing so violates the sincerely-held religious beliefs of some parents. Religious beliefs have special constitutional protections whether or not they’re viewed favorably by society. (Protection of only those beliefs viewed favorably is no protection at all.)

I find the school’s arguments that accommodating these parents is too impractical quite problematic, because if that were the case then schools would be required to refuse accommodations for every religious belief at least as difficult to accommodate as his one. I think some mainstream religious beliefs (dietary requirements, for example) could fall into that category.

Yes, and I’m certainly unhappy about Adams’ performance (as are most New Yorkers). However, I think you’re wrong about his status as a former cop - it was not something he hid or downplayed when he was campaigning, and many people voted for him because he was the law and order candidate.

There are no serious GOP candidates for mayor in New York - that’s why the Democratic primary rather than the general election is such a big deal. And the local Overton window is moving so far left that a man who supported Defund the Police back when it was cool (he says he doesn’t anymore) is probably going to be the next mayor.

I’d say that Adams ran as a centrist candidate. Bloomberg too.

What does vote splitting have to do with a Democratic primary?